Ooops, how did that happen?

Well one minute I'm sitting wondering what to paint next and then this..........

my Dystopian Wars painting backlog. Yeah, yeah, but I can at least claim to be only partly responsible, Xmas from the missus came early. The GW Space Marine is in there for scale, and there are another 8 ships sitting in my shopping cart waiting for payday, I think that lot might take me a little longer than January to paint.

the next of the big 'uns

This one arrived today, a lot earlier than I'd thought it would

I must say that this one isnt big, its a freakin MONSTER, just over 6 inches from stem to stern, but happily it should prove the easiest build of all the carriers so far as it comes in only 2 pieces, main hull and top deck. When you compare that with the British Sky Fortress that came in 19 pieces thats pretty damn good. Oh yeah for anyone not into Dystopian its an American Aircraft Carrier.

Some BIG 'uns

These additions to the French and British fleets arrived today,

and these buggers are BIG, so big that getting them painted is quite daunting, well for me anyway. But I suppose that its going to have to be done and done quickly as there are another 3 on their way, this time American and Japanese. Why American and Japanese, well because I happened to come across an e-mail from Spartan to my missus confirming the order of those two starter fleets, that'll teach her to delete e-mails that she doesnt want me to see.

Say hello to the Ark Royal

Here's the latest addition to the British fleet.

This thing is a honking great monster of a model, well it would be as its based on two battleship hulls, assembly and painting was a bit of a nightmare as it really demanded to be painted without the flight deck in place. Getting the deck supports glued in so that the deck could be added later was a fiddly operation but it finally all came good, and I think it looks the canines cojones anyway.

and OOOPS!!!!!!!!!!

Well last night Mexican Dave and me had our first game of Dystopian Wars and it proved to be a blast literally (sorry no pictures).

The game started with us rolling for our Fleet orders, Dave got "Capture the Enemy Flagship", I got the more usual kill 70% of the enemy fleet.

I took Brits as theyre the newest painted and Dave took the French as seems pretty normal with these rules there wasnt much in the way of firing in the first turn with both of us being newbs we just sorta ambled forward sorting out which ships could fire in which directions. We pretty much worked out that Brits are better broadside on and the French can shoot out the front of their ships better.

Turn 2 saw a lot of firing with pretty much everything that Dave shot at me being nullified by a combination of Shield and Guardian generators, and my shooting sinking a few of his Frigates and putting some hurt on one Heavy Interceptor and a Cruiser.

Turn 3 very early on saw what prompted the title of this post, I realsied that I'd royally screwed up my fleet, I had a basically nose to tail line of cruisers blocking my battleship from the front with a line of Frigates about to collide with its stern. I'd have to be careful about the order of activating these guys (or so I thought). Dave being Dave decided "what the hell, I'm gonna see what this Heat Lance thingy does" activated his battleship, got a line of sight onto mine and fired it, Dave cant roll dice for toffee normally, but he picked up his 12 dice and because of the exploding 6s managed to roll no less than 20 hits. We (later confirmed by some of the veteran players) decided that as the heat lance is and energy weapon that the Shield Generators on the battleship would have no effect on these so it was a double crit on the poor old Thunderchild. That 4 HP right away I thought, 1st Crit was systems offline (there go my shields) and it just had to be, the way he was rolling double 1s, magazine explosion. Boom!!!!!!!!!! Dave was a victim of his own success, remember he was supposed to Capture it, I was later heard to remark in my best Michael Caine impersonation "You were only supposed to blow the bleeding doors off!"

We called it then as time was wearing on, had a quick squint at the other games going on and headed home, Dave was muttering about losing because of getting for once in his life decent dice rolls, but really I'd call that one a draw. Ok he couldnt bring off a win but I'd really struggle to get 70% of his boats killed as most of my firepower and defences had just blown up, both fleets should have disengaged at that point and headed back to port.

Good game, yes, my traffic jam brought out the need for a bit more forward planning, also when fighting Brits do NOT target stuff with shield generators on them, go for the stuff that you can get an easy kill on. Yes this one will get several more outings, especially when Dave gets round to painting up his Prussians.

The British are coming!!!

Here we see HMS Thunderchild leading her battle group past the French costal islands to sneer in the general direction of the garlic eating surrender monkeys.

But seriously, these do look a lot more "steampunkish" than the French fleet in my last posts, the paintjob is what I imagine  RN ironclads would be painted in Victorian times, probably way off base, but what the hell its steampunk scifi, how can I actually be wrong?

I had thought that the Froggies were gonna be my main fleet for this game but I've fallen in love with these so any future expansion will probably be done to this lot. Who can resist a carrier thats actually two battleship hulls welded together and a deck mounted over that, ok its only got 4 turrets instead of 8 but it fires a hellascious amount of torpedoes and you can refuel and rearm your tiny fliers, whats not to love?

Another view of the Fleet

First up I'm going to hold my hand up and say that these as yet have seen no action but I did want to see what they looked like when they were set out ready for combat. Surprisingly for a "starter" set they actually do cover the table densely enough, normally I'd expect any starter forces to look pretty sparse when set out, in Dystopian Wars anything up to a full scale battle is on a 4ft x 4ft table. Starter boxes are around the 650 point mark and a full scale battle is 1250 points, which is where it jumps to a 6ft x 4ft table.

That's them set out on a 4ft frontage, ok there's room to squeeze another squadron or 2 into that line, but it does look like the starter sets will be sufficient for the first few games, so being pretty weak willed I've just ordered the Kingdom of Britainia starter set from evil-bay. Looks like a lot of naval gaming upcoming.

My latest distraction

Well I found myself at my club's show just over a week ago with money in my wallet and to be honest nothing really to spend it on. That's my excuse for being a bit weak, Mexican Dave has been trying to entice me into Spartan Games Dystopian Wars, so long story short, there was a trader selling the stuff, so I thought for a minute it's 1870, Dave has been buying odds and ends of a Prussian fleet, Franco-Prussian war and all that, so I should be pretty safe buying a French fleet. Besides who can resist cruisers that are flying, so thats what I bought and the rulebook of course.

Thats them done apart from one cruiser still on the painting table, I was a happy bunny as I got 10 frigates instead of 9, then the happiness evaporated somewhat when I sat down and read the "fluff" the Prussians are actually allies of the French, bugger!!!!

My latest army

Well after a successfull snipe on Ebay, I have aquired yet another 6mm SciFi army for Future War Commander and couldnt resist posting the fruits of my bidding here.

In FWC terms that represents a 12,000 point army, and I still have shedloads (about 25) APCs left, which was what I was really after when I bid on this lot. Sensibly I dont believe that I'll ever get the chance to field them as a whole as even FWC has its limits for speed of play, but it is an impressive load of kit. Even more impressive when you consider that it cost me £10.50, I couldnt even get the Thunderhawk dropship for that as at current GW prices pretty much anything Epic costs £12.30. The OOP plastic titans are going for about £19 on Ebay at the moment, and lets not mention the Baneblade or Shadowsword Heavy Tanks. So all in all, am I pleased with my purchase? You betcha!!!!!

Finally finished these

Just stuck the last unit to their bases and just had to post a couple of piccies

The en-masse shot

and a little closer in. On the whole I'm quite pleased with these, just need to work out what to do with the 300+ that I have left over.

Dux Brit painting update

Its now been a week since I've been waving my paintbrush in the general direction of these guys and progress has been a little better than expected, but not much. Here whats been done so far.

The Romano_British, from left to right, 4 skirmishers, 2 units of Levy and the 4 Nobles

Meet the Fockers, I mean Saxons, again from left to right, 4 skirmishers, a unit of Hearthguard and the 4 Nobles.

Thats 34 done with another 48 to go.

My master plan you see is that come the end of the month, pay day, is to order another 70 foot and 20 cavalry for this lot, looks like I may just get these painted before the end of the month. Its only 24 a week needed, then I can finish of the Napoleonics. The new load are not just to provide the bulk of the reinforcements needed for a Dux Brit campaign but to provide a bunch of units for a game of the other Dux, Dux Bellorum, which is just a fancy version of DBA, using the movement trays as units, so 6 figs per unit and about 10 units per army.

Last weeks Napoleonics game

Last weekend me and Mexican Dave had a trial run at Ganesha Game Drums and Shakos, Large Battles. it been a week now and I'd like to post my thoughts on this ruleset. As I wasnt entirely sure that we didnt get things a bit wrong, I tried them out solo during the week and taking my time. Well unsurprisingly, we got quite a bit wrong, Brigadiers have to be activated, just like any other unit, we were just skipping this, and yes, it does make a difference. Once activated (as usual, you can choose to go for 1,2 or 3 activations) the ONLY things that these activations can be used for are, either move the Brigadier OR do a group order. The group orders are for units within his command range, you MUST then roll 3 dice using the Brigadier's Quality and the resulting successes is the number of activations available to ALL the units commanded. Providing that he hasnt rolled a turn-over with either of these rolls THEN he can go on to ordering single units outwith his command range using the units quality.

The other major thing we were getting wrong was the combat dice, on tied rolls we were replacing tied dice with unused dice, they arent replaced, the unused dice is ADDED to the tied roll, subtle difference but in the solo play through it made a massive difference.

So apart from the foulups noted above, the rules gave a VERY fluid game, it looked right, a battalion in line does look like a thin line. Battered units were able to withdraw for a chance to reform and recover, something I've never seen before, a big plus.

A couple of minus points did come up though, Dave complained that there didnt seem much point in the French being in Attack Column, and he's right in a way, once you get in close, they would be better off in line. The second minus for me is that Infantry arent forced to go into square when enemy cavalry are about. Both these could be addressed with house rules, but I'd like to play it a few more times before resorting to that.

In short, these will now be my go-to set of rules for this period, it gave a fast moving game with twenty units a side, it looked right, and all on a 6ft x 4ft table, highly recommended.

My Dux have landed

Well I was doing so well with my Napoleonic painting too, out of the 23 Infantry Battalions, 11 Cavalry Regiments and 12 Guns, I still have to paint 1 Infantry Battalion, 1 Cavalry Regiment and 2 Guns. Then it all went pear-shaped, the postie brought this lot.

Thats not bad, considering one lot (the movement trays) were from a company in Fife, the next county over, and the figures were from a company in the USA. They were ordered at the same time, go figure that one out.

Next came the wargamers excitement moment, tipping the figures out of the bags and drooling over them. Then it hit me, a real OH CRAPPITUS!!!!!!!! moment, seperate shields, oh no, I detest seperate shields, even on 28mm figures never mind 15mm.

So it looks like my Napoleonic project is on hold for a week or 3 while I stick this lot together and paint them.

1st attempt at a Dux B table

Well I followed the random terrain generation and here's what I came up with

I dont know about you but as a died in the wool 10mm gamer, my selection of 24 inch x 12 inch terrain items was exactly, well Nil. So I found some spare brown felt and chopped that into 5 24x12s, these can be hills (good luck finding 24x12 hills), swamps or woods. The only one of those I do have enought stuff for was woods so thats what they became. Next came the 4 6 x 6inch terrain items these could be lots of interesting things 2 became rocky outcrops (because I had them) and 2 became a farm/hamlet (because I'd just built them).

The interesting thing about this process is that when plonking all this stuff down, a) you dont know what scenario youre playing and b) you also dont know which table edge (or whereabouts on that edge) you'll be coming on/exiting from.

A closer piccy of the 3 dark age buildings I made

The longest bit of building these was waiting for the thatch to dry (3 times each building) but since they cost me exactly nothing I think that theyre ace.

Oh Crappitus!!!!!!!!!!

Well the magic of the interwebz has seduced me yet again into yet another new project, this time its....,.

go here and have a butchers http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/ it looks like a barrowload of fun.

1st de Ligne completed

I may have mentioned it earlier but I recently purchased Ganesha Games new Napoleonic rules, "Drums and Shakos, Large Battles". Havent played them yet as I dont have any Napoleonic figures done, but from a good read through these rules look like they tick all the boxes that I like, 6x4 table, smallish units (but lots of them) etc.

So fired up and enthused I fired off an order to Pendraken for a 10mm French Division and here's the 1st infantry unit to come off the production line.

Yes I will be adding a flag later on! So dont ask.

So now to get cracking with the other 23 infantry units, the 9 cavalry units and the 12 guns. Depressing thought really!

I called it

here

what happened was, the Roman right once again refused to move, the Roman lefts only contribution was to shoot a few arrows at a passing spear unit. The Roman centre managed one move only which left them in charge range not only of the Punic shieldwall but also 2 heavy cavalry units on their flank. Both charges succeeded and the piccy above shows the result, the Roman centre has dissapeared pretty much, game over in 3 turns, I decided that the legates on either would in fact "leggit" rather than wait around to be chewed up piecemeal.

So far

Well due to real life getting in the way I only got a couple of turns of the ancients try out in yesterday. Given that I made a fairly average roll for game length (a 4) that means that the entire game only lasts 7 turns in total.

Here's the current situation, in the 1st turn the Roman right refused to move, the Roman left refused to move and the Consul commanding the centre blundered, which wasnt as bad as it could have been as the block of Legionaries he was commanding shuffled half-heartedly towards the enemy. The Carthaginians fared a little better, with their left wing cavalry starting to trot towards the Romans then stopping, again the right wing wouldnt budge and the main spear block in the middle making some headway across the table.

Turn 2 saw the Roman right wing still refusing to move ("bugger off, we're still having breakfast!"), the Roman left however made great strides forward with a unit of light cavalry even passing the mountain foothills. The centre made a steady if unhurried advance. The Carthaginian left wing cavaly started swinging round the wood, lights to the fore with the shock cavalry coming up at the rear, the right wing made a half hearted advance towards the mountain withe the centre continuing their march to match spear phalanx against Roman legion.

More to follow tomorrow, that is as long as the dog is ok and can actually hold some food down today, otherwise its gonna be another day of 12 visits to the park.

A missed fight

Well due to an unexpected "curry night" at friends me and Mexican Dave missed our fortnightly visit to the club, which was a real bummer as I was looking forward to our debut outing of Warmaster Ancients. So long story short I've decided to get them on the table and chuck a few dice at them solo.

Even at a very modest 1000pts both armies fill my little 5ft x 5ft table to the point of having to double rank some stuff. This comes as a shock to me as the last time I played with Romans (WRG rules) they were well hard but usually vastly outnumbered, here its pretty much an even match up with the Punics (in units anyway) I'm rather looking forward to this, it might well prove to be a pants ruleset, but I'm hoping not. I have noticed this in the past, that what on first or even second read looks to be a cracking ruleset turns out not to be when you actually try them out with figures and dice. I'll let you know my opinion of these once my legions have crushed the unwashed hordes of Hannibal, or failed to, which with my dice rolling is more than likely.

US platoon finished

Thats me a happy bunny now, the US Armoured Infantry platoon for SOTR is finally finished.

As mentioned on Mexican Dave's blog I started this lot over a year ago, I think I painted up a dozen and got distracted by something shiney, but thats that project done and dusted. Two complete opposing forces, tick, rulebook and expansion, tick, bucket of dice, tick. All boxes ticked so ready to play.

Senetas Populas Que Romanum

Or for the senate and people of Rome, yes finally finished painting my Warmaster Ancients Republican Romans, its only taken 18 months.

A whole load of flocking still to do but I'll get round to it, so why on earth did it take me so long to get these painted? Well literally weeks after I'd ordered these and a matching Carthaginian army, Pendraken released both these and the Carthaginians as resculpted ranges, well to be honest after looking at the new stuff and looking at these I was gutted, but I finally forced myself to finish them and I'm looking forward to thrashing those Punics all over Tunisia.

On a side note as promised a progress piccy of the new Mech

Thats Libby gazing in shock and awe at her new toy. Quite a staightforward build really with only the claw/hand - wrist joint being a bit of a nightmare, but a little milling with a 4mm drillbit and a little bit of pinning and its all built. More piccys as I spoil a good model with my ham fisted painting.

and FINALLY!!!!!!!!

well it only took 5 weeks but Maelstrom finally delivered my US Mech

looks like an explosion in a parts factory, but all in all I'm quite impressed my the big fella. He is big by he way that resin main body standing 100mm tall before I start sticking the metal bits to him. The resin casting also is impressive not an air bubble is sight, take note GW, you might wanna ask Westwind how to cast your shitecast. My bazooka team arrived as well but thats just not nearly as exciting as a Mech is it? I'll post some more progress piccies of him as soon as I can work out how to stick it all together.

Painting shedule has just gone off the rails again.

My intentions for this week were fairly simple, finish off my Republican Romans (well I did buy them 18 months ago) and start on some Napoleonic Austrians for the new ruleset I bought on Saturday. Gamesha Games Drums and Shakos Large Battles, check them out they look awesome, I'll tell you if they live up to the expectations when I finally get a game with them. Well the disruption is due to an e-mail I got from Maelstrom, they have finally dispatched my order, I put it in on the 1st of JUNE, good job guys, 5 weeks and it still isnt here. Well I expect that to land right in the middle of painting the last legion, and we all know I cant resist anything new and shiny, so they'll get priority I expect and my Romans will continue to languish in the land of Nearly Done.

1st SoTR battle done

Well Mexican Dave and I decided it was about time that we chucked some dice at this, so we trucked our forces along to our local club on Saturday. Sorry no piccys but I just plain forgot to chuck the camera into the box. It was a straightforward "capture the tech" scenario, with a large crate plonked into a ruin near the centre of the table. Things started badly for Dave with me winning the initiative (the only time I did btw) and moving my Mech up and taking a potshot at his Mech, a shell through the engine block saw that thing stuck in its start position for the rest of the game. This turn and the next couple saw very little firing, with both sides running at the double for both the objective and any cover they could grab near the objective. What helped the Soviets to get into better positions was the much higher number of activations they had (Dave could have had at least one more by splitting his squad into 2 fire teams) which meant that even after Dave was all done moving I still had 3 or 4 teams to move into a good firing position. In the end the Mechs had very little effect on anything other than themselves with Dave's ending up immobilised and with his HMG arm blown off, mine took a shell through the leg and keeled over wrecked. The main fighting took place at the edge of a scruffy looking village with the Soviets getting into the upper floors just before the German infantry could claim cover from the roadside hedges. Soviet Infantry have a barbaric amount of firepower, its a free upgrade to dish out assault rifles to all the goons in your squad, thats 3 dice a figure. I had 6 guys in that top floor and they let loose a firestorm at Dave hapless guys still running across the meadow, boom 18 dice and 12 hits later I think 3 guys actually made it to the hedge. After that Dave tried to get his Werewolves into buildings next turn, but made the same mistake as the infantry, tried crossing open ground in front of the now dug in Soviets, Red-Mist time as they got pumped full of good Russian lead. He would have been much better going for the RPG team outside the village and working his way from builing to building, but patience in wargames has never been Daves strong suit. It ended up with both side banging away at anything they could see for the rest of the game but with little effect, but in the end the numbers were with the Soviets.

All in all, it was a good game, we liked the turn sequence and once we'd done a couple of turns the shooting was second nature, we didnt get any close combat done, but thats for another game, I suspect that Dave's Mech is getting a tiny red star painted on it, just to remind me that it HAS indeed shot down a Soviet Mech every time I see it.

Soviet Survivors completed

Thats them done now and ready to face the might of the Nazi warmachine this weekend.

Not too much "weird" in there yet, but I do plan on having a horde of zombies and a were-bear at some point in the future.

The Beast is painted

Well that took less time than I thought.

Thats the monster mech painted, a nice mottled green with its infantry behind it just for scale.

Soviet Infantry painting complete

Yep, thats the infantry done now

just need shading and varnishing, the bases done and a quick spray of Dullkote.

Now for a change of pace I have to tackle the beast of a Mech I built.

The Yanks in the background are languishing, still waiting for Maelstrom to send me their Mech and Bazooka team so I can get them finished off as well.

Other Distractions Completed

These didnt really take too much time at all, and IMHO look ok

The Kobolds I painted with reddish/brown skin as I wanted to use them as both cannon fodder/filler figures in SoBH warbands and also as one of the "game effects" in SoTR where when a unit of 4 or more figures is actvated then theres a chance of that unit attracting the attention of other-worldy beings. In short they get attacked by up to 6 lesser daemons so I wanted them to look as Impy as possible, in the game effect the Daemons really are very lesser, so weak that its more of an annoyance than a threat. These will fill that role fine I think. The Werewolf I'm still not sure whats gonna happen to him, but for the meantime he could be used as a stand-in for the Ursine (Werebear) that I want for my Soviet platoon, I'd add him to my Orge's warband but that would involve losing even more Goblins from it, so he might just be a game effect/random monster for that game.

More Shiney

The next wave of Soviets arrived this morning from Maelstrom Games

That completes the "normal" infantry squad and gives me a starter on the horde of zombies I intend fielding as an alternative to the big mech. Whats not to love about zombie bombs, shuffle them forward into your opponents lines and then BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some more distractions

As a break from painting more Soviet Survivors I think I'm gonna have a go at the latest batch of plastics from Reaper.

Thats half a dozen Kobolds for the princely sum of £3 and a rather fetching Werewolf for £2 all in all, I hope Reaper keep coming up with these plastics, I'll happily buy anything they do.

A little progress

Quite happy today, the postie brought this

so now I have all the rules, scenarios and new unit stats for WWW2,

not only that but theres been some Soviet troops on my painting table

not too many there yet, but a 2 man sniper team and 3 RPG teams are currently getting the treatment. Apart from that theres a combat squad and some Zombie bombs in the post, looking forward to ordering up a Zombie horde and ann Urzine this weekend.

Just for Mexican Dave's information, there IS a quick reference sheet available, unless youre registered and logged in to the West Wind forums the downloads section is invisible, so go register.

Highly Dissatisfying

Well at long last me and Mexican Dave took the PP AWI rules out for a spin at the club last night. The rules were familiar to us as we've played quite a few ACW games with the sister set, but I cant put a finger on it but these AWI ones just didnt cut the mustard. Even with Dave's dice rolling being its usual crap it was all too one sided, bayonet charges were far to easy to pull off and quite literally 9 times out of 10 the unit being charged didnt hang around to actually fight but routed as soon as the charge started. Think I'll stick with Civil War Battles and maybe re-jig the AWI armies to be used with Black Powder.

Mecha Update

Well not much progress really

Just a single basecoat on the Mech, some gnarley bits and texture slapped onto the base, but it does look a little better than the shiny resin and bare plywood.

For one night only

Yes ladies and gentlebunnies, for one night only, for your delectation I present, in his naked splendour, the Josef Stalin 4.5

Built but without even a splash of paint the JS 4.5 Soviet Mecha, with a 28mm US Armoured Infantryman in the piccy for scale. This thing is fricken huge, I had to cut a 7 inch square plywood base to fit it on, its gonna be a real monster in the game, 85mm cannon, twin linked HMGs and a flamethrower under the chin. I love it already. :)

Amazing what you find in drawers

Looked in a drawer that I hadnt been in for a year or so and found this

Thats not one but two reasonable sized 28mm Mechs, and since the Soviets have no Mechs as such (apart from the Spider Tank) I'll use the Mech design section of the rules to stat them out as Mecha support for the new platoon. Gonna need lots of superglue and pinning to get these bad boys built, looks like Poundland here I come.

Still waiting for the postie :(

Well as I'm sitting here just waiting for the first 25 figures for my Soviet platoon to arrive I thought I'd lash the brush onto some backup for the Ogre I bought last month.

Thats an Orge leader, a Bugbear Shaman (yeah he doesnt look intelligent enough, I know) and 5 Gobbo archers, 2 Gobbo Light Infantry and 4 Gobbo Warriors. They'll be shite in battle but at least my recent Skaven warband might have a bit of a chance against them.

As a side note the Bugbear is one I found in a Dungeons and Dragons boardgame I bought years ago on e-bay and typically did nothing with. Looking at that fella, I feel that at least some of the figures might be worth painting.

SoTR platoon finished SoRTa

Inspired by the Soviet order going in I thought I'd get the lead out and finish off the US platoon (as far as I'm able, the final 3 models havent been ordered yet)

That them then, bases tidied, flocked and the whole lot de-shinified with a quick spray of the infamous Dullkote. Really looking forward to starting to play this now.

Humming and Hawing

Well lets just say that I used to be indecisive, but now I just cant make up my mind.

As my SoTR US platoon nears completion, my mind has wandered off into the realms of "it would be nice to have another platoon for them to fight". Well the obvious choice has to be German, with all its sexy weirdness of Mecha, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. But then the evil thought came that that would just be duplicating what Mexican Dave is currently doing. That left the Brits and the Soviets, dont get me wrong, some of the Brit stuff is very nice, and it would be going against the "fluff" to have Brits fighting the US. So looks like the Soviets then, after several hours of  even more humming and hawing I pressed the BUY button, well my missus did as it was for my Birthday. Now, its waiting for the postie time again as I'm now waiting for 1) The doomsday book (all the extra units and scenarios) 2) Soviet Starter platoon and 3) Vasilly Zaytev Sniper Extraordinaire.

While the Mother-in-Law doesnt know it yet but she'll be adding a Zombie Horde and an Urzine to that lot. :)

You gotta love birthdays.

Brits on parade

Thats the Brits all flagged up now and here they are

As Dave can now see, the Brits aint the monsters I've been yakking them up to be, only 9 units in total so theyre outnumbered, 2 Raw Units, 1 unit of Vets and the rest average, and 1 less General than the Yanks. So its not looking too good for Geordie's boys.

A quick Yankee roll call for Saturday

Well, finally got round to doing the flags on these guys, so we can run them out on Saturday.

Thats 10 infantry units a unit of cavalry and a field gun, unfortunatly Dave is gonna look at the position of those flags and his head will hang low. As in Dave's favourite, Civil War Battles, in Washingtons Army the position of the flag/command base signifies the training of the unit, easy way to remember it is Right is Might. Flag on the right=veteran unit, flag in the middle=average unit, flag on the left=basically untrained rabble of a unit. A good few on the left and the rest are in the middle. I'll try to restore Dave's faith in my humanity by posting the Brits later in the week.


Dave, have faith, they're really not any better, honest.

The Ogre has landed

Well here he is, with the varnish still drying on him, posing in front of the Goblin tribe that he's enslaved. One day he hopes his exploits will attract a better class of scum to his warband, but for the moment he's having to make do with these.

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm, halfway through May and I have now painted more than I've bought, a travesty I say, so in what direction do I now wave the magic paintbrush??? Common sense says to paint those Goblins, but no one ever accused a wargamer of being endowed with too much of that stuff, I think I might just haul out a random single unit of 10mm and get that painted.

I raise you mighty demon, come before me, join me here!!!!

Sorry, just couldnt resist the title, its one line of an old, old Black Sabbath track from my mis-spent youth. But on with the show, I promised my mate Kingsleypark that I'd pop up a piccy of my latest mini, since his last entry was all about his latest rash of painting boobily endowed women. So without further ado, my new demon.

Why a demon when I'm painting WWW2 troops? Well one of the scenarios on their forum has the Germans trying to raise a demon to fight for them, and I also read a nice Song of Blades one where depending on whether your warband is good or evil (who am I kidding, all my warbands are evil) a demon or an angel was being raised. So in short I  needed  wanted a demon so I picked this one from the Reaper catalogue.

On the subject of Reaper minis, could this be their answer to the GW shitecast debacle?

Yeah he is still a bit rough and only half painted, its from Reaper's new Bones line, not metal but polymer, thats a 60mm tall Ogre there and comes in at a whopping £2.20 delivered. Reaper seem to have dropped the ball here, after all when you make the same model (yes he is available in metal) in cheaper material your supposed to increase the price surely???

SoTR Update

Been slathering paint about with my usual gay abandon and I thought I'd post the results

The platoon so far, in the front row, a Comanche Light Mech as 1 support option, Liberty as my character choice, the command squad with medic and radio operator upgrades, and finally a HMG. In the second row its 2 combat squads with 2 grunts in each upgraded to a BAR, in one squad the Sarge has taken that upgrade as well. All the upgrades so far have been free upgrades and that lot comes out at 32 points, with the standard game size being 50 points. Ok it all needs flocking and hitting with Dullcote, but I prefer doing that when its all complete, so just enjoy them in their shinyness for now.

So whats to be added? Well you cant have Weird War 2 without some weirdness, so it just has to be "Codename Sarge" a medium sized mech, think "tank on legs" and you have him. That comes in at a whopping 16 points so about the only useful thing I could add would be a 2 man Bazooka section at 2 points and I'm done. I dont have these yet so theyre gonna have to wait until the end of the month now, its the age old question of "Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?"

I love my postie

Why? Cos this lot arrived today.

More distractions, do I plod on with my SoTR platoon, or do I plonk them on a shelf and make a start on my Orc Raiders? Knowing Mexican Dave's 28mm painting speed, and knowing that he's got at least 23 models to do, even if they arrived on his doormat today I'd estimate about 2-3 months before they hit the table. Yes, he really is that slow, he's very good, but it does take about 3-4 days before he's done a single figure. Me on the other hand am so slap-dash with my painting it tends to go the other way and I tend to get 3 or 4 done a day, as long as I've got my painting head on. Who am I kidding? I'm dying to get going with the Orcy boats, that and knowing full well that they'll be invoved in a clash with Dave's Bone Griffons long before the Armoured Infantry is called on to crush the filthy Hun.

SoTR Platoon just got a bit bigger

Well thanks to a lucky spot on evil-bay, my platoon just got that much bigger thanks to these guys

Okay I dont really need another command squad but a 12 man combat squad already assembled and primed is always good. These figures really are a pain to assemble with their seperate heads and weapons. Oh and the price was nice as well, just £12.

Havent totted up the points yet but that gives me a command squad, 2 full combat squads, 2 support units (a HMG and a light Mech) and one character. Talking of characters, I havent had the heart to break it to Mexican Dave yet, he ordered 2 characters with his initial purchase, sorry mate, the limit is 1 per platoon.

I did some thinking (yes!!! that was what the noise was), for a small skirmish game you can fit an awful lot of figures on the table, take these yanks, minimum of 1 command squad, 7 figures, between 1 and 4 combat squads, take 4 and thats another 48 figures, take 3 HMGs as supoports thats another 9 and of course your single character, thats a whopping 65 figures in a platoon. I dont think that any platoon got anywhere near that in real life.

Big guys back on the painting schedule

Well its been a year since I got them, so with Mexican Dave buying some Weird War 2 Germans I thought its time to finish these guys off, its only a dozen but I sort of lost track of these.

Must have a read through the rules again but they did look very promising last year anyway.

and another update

Well I had a good scour of the Fortress Europe book and settled on 1000pt (ish) armies, both sides came to 1035pts so I'm not worried about the odd few points. So 1st heres the filthy hun.........

followed by the gallant forces of freedom....

a few bases still to be painted, and a lot of tarting up of bases etc but all in all playable from the moment that the postie delivers the rulebook.

10mm Flames of War update

Well I was having a look at the Fortress Europe book and it looks like the quickest way to get a game on the table (using my existing armies) is to field a tank company per side. Then I had a look at what support/weapons attachments they could take. Ended up with a Panzer Kompanie (mixed) with a Panzergrenadier platoon to back them up, and for the Yanks, they got a weakish Tank Company, a Mechanised Infantry platoon and a battery of Priests to spread all that HE goodness around. So how much do I have to buy/paint to get that on the table, well, buy, NOTHING! Paint, not too much, this lot really....

Shouldnt take that long really :)

Mexican Dave has got his wish

Well Dave has been banging on about the lack of 10mm goodness for our FWC games (he doesnt really like 6mm), well his prayers have been answered. Go here http://www.hawkwargames.com/ for a sneaky peek at a few of the new 10mm models about to be unleashed. From what I've heard it's a whole new game system, all being launched at once, rules, 4 races (between 12 and 15 models per race), scenery, etc, etc.
Should be very interesting to see what the prices are like.

And yet another new project

Given the rash of new 15mm plastic releases by PSC and Wargames Factory started me musing again about Flames of War, this was a game I had in 15mm a good while ago but due to the rather pricey minis I gave up on and got rid of. So at the club last night I got chatting to Mexican Dave, who rather liked the game the couple of times we played it, it could have been the thought of all that plasticy goodness that put him off flying his planes right, who knows. Lets just say that his hopes of two victories in a row were soon dashed. Meanwhile back here in the man-cave, common sense has broken out, Flames of War, fine, 15mm, not so fine. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that really, doing it in 15mm was going to be pretty silly. I already have 6 10mm WW2 armies, all painted up, that and the fact after perusing the FoW Ostfront book, the plasticy goodness is actually a bit sparse on the bits and bobs needed, I've decided to just do it in 10mm. Just my luck the Pendraken site is down, the server is sick apparently, so I cant get planning any purchases, but the gypsy side of me is seeing lots of green tanks in my future.

And................. Done!!!

Well, thats that lot done, not too bad really, a wargame assembled and painted in a fortnight. Ok close-ups would show the (rather poor) quality of painting, but that piccy shows them pretty much as you'd see them on-table, so for me, thats good enough for Government work.

Have I played it while painting this lot up, hell yeah, I've played about a dozen games so far, plays really fast, the rules just work without being over the top with detail. I think it says enough about the rules that of the dozen I've played (all on easy mode) I've only won 4. This game has A LOT of re-playability.

What do I think could improve this game? I've been pondering, 1:600 isnt really my scale, I think I'd like to re-do it in 1:300, again not really my scale but the aircraft at least are a big chunky handful. More aircraft stats so it can spread into other conflicts, more scenarios, 6 at 3 difficulty settings is a bit on the stingy side.

Aside from that I can honestly say that I've had more games (and fun) in the last fortnight than, well at any time in the past, so all in all, money well spent.