Bleaseworld

More Zombies

2012-01-29T17:20:00.000Z

The remaining sixteen Wargames Factory zombies. Really quick and easy, block paint, bit of blood (GW Red Gore) then Army Painter dip......

Wacht Am Escargot?

2012-01-28T19:37:00.002Z

A few years back I had one of my "ohh shiny!" moments at Fisticuffs and ended up coming home with a pink carrier bag chock full of 15mm Early War French from Peter Pig (don't ask...). Currently sat somewhere on Lead Mountain I hadn't given them too much thought until I hear that Zvedza were planning to release a Matilda I and Hurricane for their Art of Tactic game sometime in 2012. I mentally filed this information away until the ducks started to line up following Mark Hamman's post on his blog about his Wacht Am Weekend Battle of the Bulge project.

It was Mark and Maff's idea to have some small beer 'n' pretzels games using the Axis & Allies Miniatures rules that caught my imagination as I didn't want to go full tilt into something like Flames of War at this stage. I've never played the game but having downloaded the rules for free from the WizKids! site here, I was quite taken with the simple mechanics and that looked like they'd provide a fun old school type game (in the 'Airfix' tradition as Maff put it).

The only problem was that whilst the rules were free the unit stats were on the cards that came with the miniatures (which I didn't want to buy as I already had miniatures to use). Mark and Maff however came to the rescue pointing me in the direct of the Axis & Allies community who have developed some house rules (here), importantly all the stat cards for the house rules (here) and loads of other units including anything from dinosaurs to the Red Skull (here).

So having solved the rules (and stat card) issue all that remains is the miniatures. Tentatively I'm going to look at knocking up some small Blitzkrieg era 15mm forces later in the year when I take some holiday (note to self, take more than one day off in the first six months this year!), looking at blitzing through the forces in a week or so (well, how long can 15mm German really take?!).

All I have to do now is find the French to see what I bought and then draw up a shopping list of Germans (and yes, the Zvedza plastics will probably be the route for AFV's I think I can get away with an Ausf G variant of the Panzer III in 15mm...)

Zombies...

2012-01-28T15:51:00.001Z

Another of those real world gets in the way weeks but I have tried to grab a few minutes here and there to progress the first zombies for Undead Kingdom. Seven are now done with sixteen waiting for a slap of grey paint on their bases (they currently look like they are in the desert!)

Wargames Factory plastics, they have plus points in being cheap and easy to convert, with some negatives in some soft detail and strange pack composition issues (not enough bare arms, too many with short sleeves). Still for a large shambling horde the plusses probably outweigh the minusses and with another sixty to be made up the cost savings alone make them worthwhile.

Alongside these I am also working on the Dwarf Kings Hold miniatures and must say that the Mantic skeletons are a lot better than I thought when I looked at the sprues and if you have any wish to make an undead fantasy army, these along with the superb Mantic zombies are the way to go...

Panzerfauste Eins?

2012-01-22T13:03:00.001Z

Some of you may be aware that Wessex Games produce a fantasy-WW2 game called Panzerfäuste with the historical protaganists replaced by fantasy stereo-types, this having been a (un)natural progression from the work I did on Flintloque in the mid-nineties.

A couple of packs of miniatures have more of a Great War flavour, especially the Dwarf stormtroopers, Gnome infantry and (unreleased) Orc Highlanders so I was quite taken to see that there is a small online community producing fantasy-WW1 miniatures with a possible game being put on at Salute.

First off there is The Goblin Barracks with their lovely German Goblins sculpted by Richard Ansell as an OPFOR for the Hasslefree Kindred WW1 British Halflings. With miniatures in Picklehaube and Stahlhelm I must say they are very tempting.

Second off are Akula's Armies Dwarf Russians sculpted by Bob Olley (with the possibility of Undead Ottomans to come) which look absolutely lovely...

I know I must resist the call of a new (albeit related to an existing) project but it is proving very hard! :-)

Eternity Stair

2012-01-20T11:37:00.000Z

Following on from the Dreadfire Portal, I have now finished the Eternity Stair received at Christmas from Angji and family. This was a much better model than the Dreadfire Portal and very easy to construct, although the tower does come in four sections rather than two and requires a bit of patience to stick together (my tip, build two halves then glue them together).

I decided that I wanted this to look like an old weather structure as well, though this model is has much less of a grey-green finish than the portal, it still has the same old bronze and verdigris on the metal work as well as some moss and Devlan Mud weathering on the stonework and skulls.

The platform features the signs of the eight winds of magic from the Warhammer background so I went with painting the colours under each design. I didn't manage to get these colours as pale as I wanted as my attempts to do so ended up changing the colours but I think the final effect is ok.

Finally I decided to paint up an old GW wizard who has been languishing on Lead Mountain for far too long. Having painted up a red wizard and a purple one a little while back I thought it an idea to paint up one from a different college of magic. The obvious colour for this Gandalf-esque model was obviously grey so being ornery I decided on green and a wizard of the Jade Order which has turned out ok.

i-Mag

2012-01-20T00:02:00.000Z

Regular blog readers may recall at the end of November I was undertaking some 'spring cleaning' under the watchful eye of SWMBO and I was experiencing some spousal pressure to cull my rather large collection of magazines (so far skillfully resisted!). In all fairness she does have a point and there are only so many crates a man should be filling with magazines that rarely get revisited. Consequently whilst there are a number of good wargames magazines on the market I have restricted my only subscription to one, Wargames Illustrated, which has (IMHO) been consistently good to excellent since Battleground have taken over the running.

I do have a soft spot for Battlegames and a while back purchased the 'motherlode' of the first 26 issues in PDF format for future consumption and following a work business case for a tablet being accepted I have transferred this collection into my iPad library. Whilst I am still trying to work out the work benefits (not sure 3G is a great idea as I am always contactable now!) I am really taken with reading wargames mags electronically now. In fact I might have become addicted...

So when Big Lee's Miniature Adventures favourably reviewed the relaunched Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy mag I decided to download a PDF issue which costs just under half what the paper magazine does. Big Lee was right, it is an excellent magazine these days with some really good columns by Rick Priestly and Richard (Lardie) Clarke so I ordered an electronic subscription and the back issues since the relaunch. Excellent stuff and lots of hugely enjoyable reading (conveniently wherever the iPad is and not having to hunt out a paper magazine, indeed I would say I am reading the PDF more than I am the paper WI...).

The publishers in confirming my sub kindly gave me a 10% of my next order... Damn! With the pre-relaunch issues at a paltry £1.86 and 10% off that I went PDF crazy and bought the lot. I am slowly working my way through them and whilst they are not as good as the current issues and have some wonderful Spanglish in, they are proving to be more interesting (and useful) that I thought (though worryingly I keep flipping from the PDF to the internet browser to check out companies miniatures and have manfully resisted the lure of 20mm Stalingrad Germans and 28mm Samurai tonight).

I have even uploaded a couple of Ragnarok's and (having typset it with the PDF in mind) I must say that I think the full colour Rag 59 PDF looks pretty fine on the iPad!

It's actually quite funny it has taken me so long to make this step as I have for the last year or so switch most of my music purchasing from CD's to MP3 downloads due to storage issues (a much bigger problem than the magazines unfortunately) and have been comfortable with that.

Whilst I doubt I will completely switch over to digital only for magazines or books, I am taken with the convenience of the electronic format and suspect that one day soon this will be the more common medium and paper, by and large, redundant in most cases.

Happy 20th Birthday SFSFW!

2012-01-15T20:54:00.001Z

I didn't realise until yesterday that Thursday 12th January was the Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers 20th birthday, or at least the date of the first meeting of the inaugural committee to get the thing off the ground. It's funny to see how the hobby has changed over the last twenty years (the internet for one thing) but at the time fantasy and SF wargaming was falling in a black hole between historical wargaming and role-playing.

For my sins I took on the role of society journal editor for the first thirteen issues, before a twelve issue break, then another eleven issue stint before handing the reins of Ragnarok over again. I was adamant that was it and I could hand over to a long series of future editors. Two later I'm back in the hot seat largely because it seems no one else is fool enough to volunteer! :-)

So since November I've been back on editorial duties and have just finished editing and proofing Ragnarok 59, will probably be sending it off to print next week. If you are interested in fantasy and/or SF wargaming have a look at the contents here and see if it interest you. If so, please join the SFSFW, the more the merrier and it would be good to have you on board as we set forth on the next twenty year voyage of F/SF wargaming...

Dreadfire Portal

2012-01-13T12:17:00.000Z

As previously stated Christmas brought the unexpected present of the GW Eternity Stair/Dreadfire Portal boxed set. Whilst I haven't bought the Storm of Magic supplement, both items are useful enough as general scenery items and you can't have enough scenery can you? :-)

Whilst I have made both up I have only painted the Dreadfire Portal so will concentrate my observations to this half of the kit. First off I must say that the Portal is probably the worst fitting kit I have made in decades. The detail is fine but the decision to mould the long stairway as a one piece means that it does not fit the two halves of the main body very well at all and in the end I took the decision to snap the stairway in two and fill the gap. Filling is a must on the model but is an easy job with the new Liquid Green Stuff, if I had used standard Green Stuff it would have been a very long and laborious job.

I had wondered whether I had just got a box with a badly fitting piece but a quick surf of the internet shows I am not alone in having this problem. It is not insurmountable and shouldn't detract from what with a little effort does build into a great looking piece of scenery, but it is worth being aware of the problem and I think snapping the stair in two is the easiest solution.

When it came to painting I wanted to do something totally different to the painted example on the box (that so many gamers seem to have copied, why?). Looking at the model I decided that it was going to be an ancient construction, dark to reflect an evilness and weathered in such a way as to give the impression of being somewhat damp.

Working up from a black undercoat with green washes and grey drybrushing the end result is a tad more grey-green than I planned but not so much as I am unhappy. I also used some Devlan Mud to dirty up the model notably around the areas near the ground and on the edges of the stairs, the centre being clearer to show where those that have climbed the stairs have rubbed away some of the moss of grime.

In keeping with the stonework I decided the metal needed substantial weathering as well. Wishing to avoid iron (not very good for magic) I decided on the metalwork being copper/bronze. Fortunately the current White Dwarf shows some really good examples of verdigris weathering on their undead army's bronze armour. Unfortunately it does not tell you how they achieved the effect. However a bit of Google-fu found this useful article on the GW website showing how they painted Dark Bronze on a Skaven Doomwheel which I followed step-by-step (the initial undercoat of a mix of normal and metallic paint was not one I had tried before but worked well).

Finally it was a decision on the flames which I'd rather not had on the model but are moulded onto the skulls. I did consider the unearthly green balefire look GW give their undead but decided regular red fire would provide a better contrast to the grey-green model. For small (candle, torch) flames I have a simple white-yellow-orange-red technique that works well enough but these flames were substantially larger than Dwarf candles so I did some research and came up with this excellent article and guide to painting flames which I followed by and large. The flames are pretty smooth so are not too receptive towards glazes and drybrushing but the end result is ok.

Overall I am very pleased with the end result and any issues with the fitting are not beyond an average modeller with basic skills.

Tank Museum Buys War Horse Tank

2012-01-10T12:15:00.000Z

The Tank Museum in Bovington has bought the replica Mark IV tank from the new War Horse movie to show off what a moving Great War tank looked like. Interesting little feature off Meridian Tonight on it can be seen here.

Undead Kingdom?

2012-01-06T18:00:00.000Z

Wargaming pressies in Blease Towers were rather limited (through choice) this Christmas. I received a couple of packs of lovely Indian Mutiny figures from Mutineer Miniatures (no, not a new period, just a very stagnant one) and an unasked for, but very welcome, GW Dreadfire Portal and Eternity Stair (currently constructed, undercoated and hoping to start on the Stair this weekend). Saul received an Arachnarok Spider (which he wants to have a 40K option scratchbuilt for) and three packs of Wargames Factory zombies...

The latter are going to end up on the workbench first as I look to get them ready for some games of Apocalypse Z (the zombie supplement for Battlefield Evolution), which you may recall I picked up off eBay for just 99p. Although the supplement is somewhat American orientated you can use any of the forces from Battlefield Evolution which would tie in with my preference to have a British based battlezone (if only because 28 Days/Weeks later are much beloved films in Bleaseworld).

This also ties in with a couple of other projects. The military and survivors will also be used as forces in my planned England Prevails games and I have for sometime planned on converting Scudbusters into Z-Busters, the background fitting in with that in Firewall 2136AD (the reason that Scotland is a wastezone in the background).

Anyway, off to study the supplement and ponder hat additional miniatures will be needed but in the meantime if you need a little zombie fix check out this excellent low/no budget fan film on You Tube, 28 Days Later - The Rage...

Barbarians In The Arena

2012-01-05T14:54:00.001Z

It seems that many of you (like me) have taken advantage of purchasing Warhammer Historical's Gladiator rules during their half-price sale (still on, if you haven't). I have only managed to give them a brief read but like the look of the game and intend to dig out my em-4 Gladiators sometime in the New Year and give it a spin.

Browsing Warhammer Historical's site I noticed they have released a free 14 page PDF supplement for Gladiator, entitled Barbarians in the Arena which adds to the diversity of the game bringing in new fighters from different cultures from the far flung reaches of the Empire as well as fighting in provincial areas with specific local rules.

On the subject of gladiators Spartacus: Vengeance reaches US TV screens this month and hopefully UK ones not too long after...

Return To Mars (And Belgium)

2012-01-01T10:51:00.001Z

First off I'd like to wish everyone of you a happy, peaceful and prosperous new year.

Looking forward to 2012, as stated, my sole real target is to play more games with Saul, this may prove hard given the fact that he has his GCSE's in May in addition to all the usual 'real world' demands but even if we play just once a month that will be an improvement on 2011...

I also need to clear the Wessex Games project log jam and to this end I have drawn up a (secret) plan to tackle this and will be concentrating my initial efforts on finishing off Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté, the Belgian Land Ironclad supplement first so expect some 2mm loveliness this month...

Instant Mold

2011-12-30T23:24:00.000Z

I have come across some interesting discussion and reviews of a product called Instant Mold, a silicone like moulding product that softens when heated and does not stick to modelling putty, allowing items to be cast in Green Stuff and similar.

This video shows it better than I can describe but I would caution against his modelling knife using skills:

Roebeast has a more in depth assessment of the product on his blog here which shows some of the uses he has put it to which certainly shows applications of the product off better than the video.

Whilst Instant Mold is available from CMON there is an equivalent product available at half the price (I have read that it is the same product but can't confirm); Oyumaru Instant Mold Moulding Compound, available in the UK from Metal Clay Ltd for £4.95. At that price it has got to be worth giving it a shot as the potential uses seems limitless...

Thanks to Andrew Wood and Ian Rees for the heads up on this.

The War Against The French

2011-12-26T21:23:00.000Z

When we think about fighting the French our thoughts usually turn to Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo more so than Madagascar and Syria but Colin Smith's England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-42 about the largely forgotten war against Vichy France and the threat posed by her navy and colonial possessions is a fascinating read.

From a wargaming point of view the campaigns in Syria, Madagascar and French North Africa make compelling reading and a series of hard fought battles between Vichy colonial forces on the one hand and British Commonwealth and Americans on the other beg further research and tabletop recreation, after all it is not often you hear of Australian troops being forced to retreat in panic - and against the French to boot. Similarly the Americans who were badly beaten in Oran will probably disagree with the inane "cheese eating surrender monkeys" label the French have been branded with by the uneducated.

Whilst you can purchase 15mm Flames of War miniatures for the French in the Levant (Syria and Lebanon), 28mm is a bit more problematical with a dearth of suitable figures. Foundry's old Darkest Africa Foreign Legion pack and Artizan's WW2 Legion may be suitable for troops with Adrian helmet head swaps but the Bolt Action and Crusader 1940 ranges less so with their troops in greatcoats (I know the French wore greatcoats in the Levant but they would look very odd to Commonwealth troops in shorts...).

I've had a growing interesting in the over-looked French involvement in WW2 and given the Syrian campaign featured the same Commonwealth troops who had previously fought against the Italians in east Africa and I am tempted towards some section to platoon level 28mm skirmish gaming for East Africa and the Levant especially if I can find some good sources for 28mm WW2 Indian Army troops (Pulp are the only ones I know of).

Back to the book, even if you don't fancy starting a new period, it is an excellent read and a good balance with regards to the politics and military with excellent use of personal accounts of fascinating battles most of us are not aware of.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T00:07:00.000Z

Hope you all were on Santa's nice list and you, your family and friends have a peaceful festive period.

The miniature is the excellent Santa Hunter from Scibor Miniatures and was quite therapeutic to do some painting yesterday...

My Dad

2011-12-24T16:17:00.001Z

My dad passed away on Wednesday morning. He'd been seriously ill for a number of years now having being diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a particularly nasty Alzheimer's variant as well as having Bowel Cancer in recent months. Whilst it wasn't a surprise it was still a shock and I'm a bit all over the place. I decided rather than sit around today to pick up a paintbrush and paint something. Whilst my Dad wasn't a wargamer he was a very good artist and painter so it helped to do something he encouraged me in.

It's funny what memories come flooding back, some long forgotten like eating smoked yellow fish on Fridays (which I haven't done since I was knee high...), the no TV on Christmas Day rule and also, from a wargaming point of view, the regular presents of Roco Minitanks be bought me from Trapnall's model shop in Weston-super-Mare.

It has also brought to the forefront the need to enjoy what we have and not put things off until tomorrow so my only New Year project as such will be geared to making an effort to play more games with Saul in 2012...

Roll On Next Christmas...

2011-12-21T12:22:00.002Z

Kindle-mass Comes Early

2011-12-13T18:18:00.000Z

Work, domestic concerns and a resumption of editorial duties for the SFSFW's Ragnarok have resulted my fingers not touching a paintbrush for over a month now which is a lamentable state of affairs and one I intend to correct later this week. In the meantime SWMBO gave me a £15 Tesco clubcard voucher that was valid on one day only last week so I toddled down Tesco Homeplus to have a look at the iPads which I did but am still undecided on a whole host of issues, 3G or Wi-Fi? 16GB or 64GB? Even white or black? (honestly, white MacBook, black iPod - doesn't help!).

Anyway feeling £15 off something electronic was too good a voucher to waste I decided to treat myself to the bottom of the range 4th generation Kindle working on the basis that whilst some people think they are either/or devices I regard them as totally diverse concepts. So £74 lighter I now own a Kindle that I am finding to be a wonderful little device and encouraging me to read more non-fiction than I have for a while.

The main draw is storage. I've just picked up both Colin Smith's England's Last War Against France and Keith Jeffrey's MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 which would stretch the limited bookshelf space available (ok, being honest the non-existent available space there is a lot of double racking and piling on top going on here in Blease Towers...). That I can back them up and sync them on my MacBook (and smartphone if I had one), can annotate books and carry a library in a A5 piece of plastic is very attractive, so much I can considering a serious book cull and ebook purchase splurge).

Will I give up "real" books? No of course not, there is still 'something; about them and from a Kindle point of view they are really only good for text rather than pictures but there is a convenience factor that any serious reader cannot ignore (and for a wargamer down the club you can have your library with you to make sure your facts are correct when you are challenged!)

Zombies Throughout History Revisited

2011-12-04T11:10:00.001Z

It seems great minds think alike. Not long after my post about Zombies in the American War of Independence AB One Games have announced Patriots & Loyalists & Zombies coming in 2012 - cool...

A Little Light Reading (Rediscovered)...

2011-11-24T14:05:00.001Z

The campaign to rescue the wargames room has been halted as SWMBO insisted on a mini-campaign to tidy up the study with one of the areas of spousal concern being some boxes of magazines buried under the desk! By and large this was my collection of Military Modelling magazine from 1978 to sometime at the end of the eighties but scattered amongst the Military Modelling's, Classic Rock magazines and copies of SFX were a number of wargames magazines, many short lived and now defunct.

These range from recent efforts such as Caliver's Battlefields from the mid-nineties, through Practical Wargamer and Wargames World to 1970's old school journals such as Battle for Wargamers, Wargamer's Newsletter and Miniature Warfare and Model Soldiers, as well as some largely unheralded efforts like the mid-eighties Esprit De Corps.

There have been comments from SWMBO about "culling" which are sending shivers down my spine (I think she means the magazines not me!). I think I have made the "right noises" about reviewing and scanning articles but I am hoping the recent investment in a few plastic storage boxes plus the sacrifice of some old SFX and role-playing magazines that I have no interest in should see the threat recede for the time being...

On a related magazine note some good news on the Battlegames front in that it has been rescued any will continue to be published by the same company that produces Miniature Wargames.

33 Days To Christmas...

2011-11-21T19:37:00.000Z

If you are looking for present ideas for the SWMBO in your life, Debenhams offers this...

Perry Miniatures Gruppo Bande?

2011-11-17T23:23:00.001Z

As my surfing for pictures of colonial units in WW2 expanded I had the brainwave of using other countries Google platforms so instead of Google.com or .co.uk, I decided to try Google.it to find pictures of Italian Askari in WW2. This turned out to be quite a successful exercise and I came across some interesting material that was not being picked up by the English language sites (including this website of one Italian gamer with photos of his forces for the Battle of Gallabat).

I also came across this wonderful full colour cover of an edition of La Domencia del Corriere featuring an attack by Italian colonial forces on a British armoured column. What interested me was that alongside the Askari are some native troops in Dervish style costume. It turns out that alongside their European forces and trained native Askari, the Italians also employed irregular forces called Bande (literally bands). It even appears that whilst not accurate the picture is inspired by a real life attack of the Gruppo Bande Amhara on a British armoured coloumn near Cherù in Ethiopia under the command of Lieutenant Amedeo Guillet (who was also prominent in the Italian Guerilla War fought in Ethiopia from 1941 to 43).

Whilst the Bande appear to differ in look from unit to unit, some wearing Italian army tunics others traditional Nile Arab dress, it occurred to me that with minimal change a small unit could be raised cheaply from a box of Perry plastic Madhists with other figures possibly being used for a range of projects from Greek Peltasts to LOTR Abrakhan Guard. I must confess I am somewhat tempted and finding researching the East Africa campaign fascinating...

Forgotten Heroes?

2011-11-14T20:09:00.001Z

Jonana Mungai, King's African Rifles, Burma

With matters domestic curtailing any wargames oriented activity I've been browsing the internet for 28mm Early War WW2 figures which is throwing up surprising gaps bearing in mind you are supposed to be able to buy any figure you want in any scale for any war (I can't find 28mm WW2 Dutch, Hungarians and Norwegians for starters).

For some reason as google-fuing often does I ended up reading some really interesting online articles on the East African campaign in 1941 (did you know the Congolese Force Publique fought against the Italians? No, neither did I...). What I found increasingly frustrating though was how little could be found on colonial units of both sides that fought in the campaign, especially when it came to photographs of these troops. Both the British and Italians employed African troops in this campaign but it is really hard to find much in the way of photographic evidence, especially of the Italian Askaris.

However the growing theme I found was how little respect there is for the colonial troops of WW2 and their contribution in the various theatres of the war. Since 'Empire' has become a dirty word it seems that the historic colonisers rarely celebrate the veterans of ex-colonies and in the independent countries the fact they fought in the "white man's war" (a direct quote off one Kenyan website about Burma) means their sacrifice gets ignored there (especially in those countries who did not become independent until post-WW2).

King's African Rifles, East Africa, 1941

Whatever the rights and wrongs of colonialism it cannot be right that these brave soldiers are airbrushed out of history just because we are supposed to be ashamed of our Imperial heritage and ex-colonies feel that their pre-independence history is one were resistance to the Imperial power is good and taking the salt was akin to collaboration ("white man slave soldiers" is a common, and in my view derogatory, phase used about soldiers like the King's African Rifles).

So what has this to do with wargaming? Not a great deal I suspect, however I am now determined that I will make some effort over the next twelve months to raise some small units of WW2 colonial troops such as the KAR and Burmese Naga as a small reminder of those that lost their lives in WW2 fighting for the allied cause were not all of European heritage. If their homelands feel they cannot recognise their contribution in the war against the Axis, there is no reason why we should not, even if only on the tabletop.

Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-13T10:01:00.002Z

Lest We Forget...

2011-11-11T09:46:00.002Z

As I am sure you all know today is the 93rd Armistice Day when we remember the sacrifice of our armed forces. This year holds a bit more significance for me following my visit to the battlefields of the Somme and my son-in-law's (thankfully safe) return from active service off the coast of Libya where his ship came under fire. The BBC has been running a programme this week after Breakfast remembering servicemen and women who have served from 1914 onwards. It was quite sobering to hear that at least one British serviceman has been killed on active service every year save one since the end of World War Two. If you have missed it you can catch up with it on iPlayer.

The picture above is one I took of Bristol's Own Cross, a wooden cross located at the crossroads of the Rue de Bazentin and the Ruelle Cambray on the west edget of Longueval village. It is dedicated to the officers and soldiers of the 12th Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment, known as “Bristols Own”, who died in the battles of July to September 1916 at Longueval, Guillemont and Morval.

Zombies Throughout History: The American War of Independence

2011-11-07T13:42:00.000Z

Following on from my Pike & Shot & Zombies post Jean-Louis commented on the possibility of extending the rules into the C18th. A few years ago I did have a stab at this and wrote up an article for Ragnarok entitled The Battle of Sleepy Hollow (the Revenge of Ichabod Crane - Necromancer), a mini-campaign using WHFB postulating the return of Crane to Sleepy Hollow with an army of AWI zombies.

As concepts go I think it is one with a lot of potential and given the planned forthcoming release of American War of Independence plastics from Perry Miniatures sometime in 2012, one I will probably return to...

Zombies Throughout History: The Thirty Years War

2011-11-06T23:15:00.001Z

A couple of unconnected incidents over the last few days appear to be leading me down the path of unintended consequences into playing a new game.

First off, in a continuing attempt to rescue the games room (the rather frightening plastic mountain is now boxed for transfer to the attic) I discovered a box of GW Zombies. I have no idea why I bought them as my only flirtation with WHFB Undead is a small unpainted Tomb Kings army, but I have 20 plastic zombies with no army to attach them to.

I didn't give this much thought until Hallowe'en when Wargame Vault had pumpkin logo trick or treat feature on their website whereby you tried to find ten pumkins on their webpages and by clicking would receive a trick (usually a link to something amusing on YouTube) or a treat (a free PDF product). I discovered three treats, one of which was Plague City, a supplement for Pike & Shot & Zombies, a C17th post-apocalyptic zombie game.

Browsing through Plague City I was quite taken with the concept and the small numbers of miniatures needed, about half a dozen survivors and two to three times as many zombies and so availed myself of both the main ruleset and Rotting Renaissance Regiments, a supplement introducing zombies derived from military units (a really good excuse to chop up some Warlord ECW figures and add Mantic zombie bits!).

It make be a little while before I sit down to stick my zombies together and whilst I have a few old Foundry ECW somewhere they are probably out of scale with the zombies and I would need to get a handful of Warlord or TAG, this is likely to prove a fun diversion from some of the larger projects I seem to have planned...

Rally 'Round Battlegames!

2011-11-05T23:21:00.000Z

Many of you will by now have heard the announcement that wargames magazine Battlegames will no longer be able to be produced in its current printed format. Battlegames was a great magazine with echoes of Practical Wargamer and Battle, I especially liked the inclusion of F/SF as "just another period" (the way it should be).

It may be that editor and publisher Henry Hyde is able to keep the magazine going as a PDF project, I certainly hope so, but what concerned me was his comments in the statement as follows, "the blunt fact is that I should have recognised the writing on the wall sooner and am now in considerable financial difficulty as a result. I have been operating as a one-man-band in a precarious financial position from the outset, with no fall-back position, and I have paid the price. It is now imperative that I resume my former career in graphic and web design for the time being, as well as my new one in writing, in order to prevent complete financial meltdown."

You may have seen Henry recently raised over £10,000 for the Combat Stress charity walking from Battle to Lewes Castle (on an unseasonably hot day when temperatures hit 28c!) and it doesn't seem right to me that someone who does something like this should not have the support of the wargaming community in his hour of need...

If you have not bought any copies of Battlegames you can buy some back issues here. Alternatively (and I think this is a fantastic bargain) for just £40.50 you can download issues 1 to 24 in PDF format here (and get a free PDF of Tabletop Teasers Volume One as well).

I'm sure any purchase, no matter how small, will be of great personal help to Henry and I encourage you all to visit the Battlegames website and buy something, you won't regret it, the only regret will be if this is the end of Battlegames...

Dwarf Stretcher Party

2011-10-31T09:45:00.001Z

Back in my schooldays 1/300th WW2 and Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition were pretty much all I played wargames wise. With my regular opponent Simon collecting Dwarves, I opted for the Citadel Fantasy Tribe Gnolls and Orcs and never picked up any of the Fantasy Tribe Dwarves, despite liking a number of the figures. One that I remember fondly is FTD14 Dwarf Stretcher Party which comprised of two dwarves carrying a wounded comrade on a stretcher made of a couple of shields balanced on two wooden poles.

Thirty odd years later and waiting for the metallics on the Athenians to dry thoroughly I decided to try and convert a homage to FTD14 using some odd plastic Dwarves from GW's more recent releases...

Whilst not perfect I am quite pleased with how this has turned out even if it has no practical use on the tabletop!

Tonight We Dine In Hades...

2011-10-27T12:18:00.000+01:00

My lingering Manthrax followed by stints as unpaid taxi driver and roadie for Saul has resulted in minimal progress on matters wargaming, indeed I have only managed to paint some flesh on some Mexicans and bronze on some hoplites in the last fortnight. :-(

However Wargames Illustrated 289 arrived and it is a Peloponnesian War special with a series of useful articles in the magazine and some more online which I have downloaded as PDF's. This has all been very inspiring so I intend to focus my efforts on the remaining elements of the Athenian army over the next few weeks.

One fly in the ointment was the disappearance of Immortal Miniatures. Announcements of a relaunched metal range to support the plastic hoplites have seen months pass without any news so I decided that my plan to use only Immortal figures needed amending.

Consequently I have been active on eBay and managed to pick up some Foundry heavy cavalry and skirmishers at a good saving on the RRP. This should allow me to finish off the Athenians and hopefully by the time I start the Spartans, Immortal will be back up and running as I really like their miniatures...

(photo Thessalian light cavalry from Immortal Miniatures)

The Battle Of Marathon Re-enactment 2011

2011-10-19T22:45:00.000+01:00

A video of the recent re-enactment celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon has been uploaded on YouTube. Whilst somewhat light on numbers it is great to see the amount of effort the re-enactors have put into keeping history alive (I was intrigued to see the only hoplite with an 'arrow curtain' had fixed it to the inside of his shield not the outside as seen on wargames figures...)

Liquid Green Stuff

2011-10-17T17:35:00.001+01:00

A work trip to Budapest which turned my man flu into fully blown manthrax somewhat limited any wargaming related activity over the last week but I did manage to give GW's latest product - Liquid Green Stuff - a quick spin and think it could be a jolly useful addition to any wargamers set up.

I guess the product is in response to the issues GW appear to be having with their Finecast resin and the small holes that can occur in the process and are really hard to fill using conventional materials like Green Stuff and Milliput.

Liquid Green Stuff is a very viscous liquid you literally paint onto fine cracks and small holes and seems to work very well. I've just tried it on the mould lines on my Maximilian War Mexicans which whilst not being very pronounced are distinct enough to show if untreated but light enough that they would show up when drybrushing or being dipped, especially on the sombreros. I would normally have filed them but this would have required a lot of effort and care, here I just painted the stuff on in minutes...

It's water soluble so brushes clean up easily and you can thing it for very fine lines and smoothness of finish. All in all, a useful product with lots of potential uses and well worth picking up.

Légendes Du Le Vieil Ouest

2011-10-07T11:29:00.002+01:00

Rummaging through my drawers(!) I came across a small pile of unpainted Foundry miniatures that I'd received as a present from SWMBO many moons ago. The miniatures had an interesting history as they were originally sculpted by Mike Owen as part of a training exercise when he started at Foundry and not intended for production, however, they were so good Foundry made them available for a limited time despite them not being (IIRC) to "Foundry standard" (or more accurately Foundry style, ie. they oozed character!). The set was based on the legendary Battle of Camarón during the Maximilian Affair and comprised of about 30 Mexicans and 30 French Foreign Legionnaires.

As with many things I hadn't done anything beyond basing the miniatures up and I had been pondering, given the nature of the Mexican costumes in particular, dipping them along with some Indian Mutiny figures one day in the future...

Thought hadn't gone much beyond this until the Warhammer Historical sale, when in a moment of inspiration/weakness, I decided to buy Legends of the Old West and the Alamo supplement to kick start this project. Given that I really like the LOTR core system LOTOW uses and the fact that I don't need any more miniatures (well not fttb...) which in themselves should be easy to paint, Camarón might well get moved up the lead mountain and onto the painting table soon...

Over The Top To 1/2 Price Warhammer Historical Sale!

2011-10-05T21:38:00.001+01:00

Heads up on a couple of things Warhammer Historical wise...

First off, possibly proving us doomsayers wrong, they have (finally) released Over the Top, the first supplement for the wonderful Great War rules, hurrah!

Secondly, Warhammer Historical are running a HALF PRICE SALE ON EVERYTHING, including the newly released Over The Top, Gladiator, Kampfgruppe Normandy, Waterloo, WAB2 etc.

Clearly big savings to be had, especially on the newer hardbacks. Kampfgruppe Normandy is now a tempting £24 and Gladiator just £10 (now coming off my Xmas list as I treat myself). All this on the day the Prime Minister was telling us to get out credit cards under control! :-)

No Pasaran - The Battle of Cable Street

2011-10-04T09:32:00.001+01:00

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, a fact sadly being overlooked by most of the UK media.

The battle occurred in 1936 when 300,000 ordinary East Enders joined the local Jewish community and Communists to prevent 7,0000 members of the British Union of Fascists marching, in uniform, through Whitechapel and Limehouse.

They adopted the Spanish Civil War anti-Facist slogan of "No Pasaran" (They Shall Not Pass).

There were a series of clashes with both the fascists and 10,000 police (who attempted to clear the route) throughout the day, but in the end the BUF was forced to turn back and subsequent legislation banned political groups from wearing uniforms in public.

Both the Daily Mirror and Islington Tribune have interesting articles on the battle with eye witness accounts. This newsreel footage of the battle has an extremely pro-establishment commentary but shows the size of the crowd.

Colonial Wars Clearout At North Star

2011-09-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

Just a brief note for those of you interested in things colonial, North Star are selling off David Bickley's three sets of colonial rules at £2.50 a set instead of the usual rrp of £11.50 to £14.00.

A Good Dusting covers the Sudan War 1884 – 1885 (and the Egyptian Revolt of 1882), Washing The Spears the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 and The Devil's Wind the Indian Mutiny 1857-8.

I think the core system is basically the same from set to set, with player(s) taking the side of the British and the natives utlising an automatic generation system but at a price per set of less than a packet of sandwiches at Tesco's I thought it worth taking a punt on all three (I'd had my eye on the Mutiny ones for a while but, fortunately in light of the offer, forgot to pick them up at Colours).

Click here to order.

Warhammer 40K Lore In A Minute...

2011-09-29T10:11:00.002+01:00

Athenian Hoplites

2011-09-26T15:42:00.001+01:00

It seems to have taken forever but I have now finished the first two hoplite phalanxes of my Athenian army for the Peloponnesian War project.

Both phalanxes are made from Immortal Miniatures excellent plastic hoplite boxes, mixing the original Ancient Greek Hoplite box with the Classical Greek set and painted using the Army Painter soft tone dip. The shield iconography are all decals from Immortal who provide a sheet with each box and an additional larger sheet which you can buy (but they gave away at Salute if you bought three boxes).

Personally I am unconvinced by the brightness of some wargamers hoplite armies with pure white linen and shining gold armour so I went for a slightly more grubby look relying on the horse plumes and shields for the splashes of colour. I also broke with tradition on the bases and used Vallejo Midstone as the base colour rather than GW Bestial Brown before drybrushing with Bleached Bone and adding some patches of flock to give the bases a more Aegean look...

Overall fairly pleased with them and keen to get the third phalanx done and the smaller veteran unit whilst the motivation is there.

Hop(lite)ing Mad!!!!

2011-09-23T20:45:00.001+01:00

The 'Curse of The Foggy Varnish' hit one of the phalanxes and despite urgent attempts to rectify the problem I ended up spending most of my lunchtime painting over the messed up brighter colours, spears and metalwork on the entire unit to bring them up to a vaguely useable standard. Why the varnish fogged I don't know as I used the same can on the separately painted shields just fifteen minutes earlier, must be a curse. The other unit varnished fine with a second can I had so it couldn't have been the weather or whatever. It is so arbitrary it is really frustrating...

Anyhow, they are coming along; movement trays made, just need to put the decals on the shields (tomorrow) and do the basing and that'll be a good chunk of the Athenians done. Also I've learnt (the hard way) some tricks on how to go about painting them so hope the final main unit and smaller veteran unit won't take as long...

Scupper Me For A Dreadfleet Else!

2011-09-19T21:30:00.003+01:00

On International Talk Like A Pirate Day* it seems appropriate to ponder GW's latest limited edition offering Dreadfleet that they announced on Saturday. The internet is awash with fanboys and anti-fanboys waxing lyrical about the pros and cons many exhibiting amazing degrees of idiocy or prejudice or both, so as I had to pop into the office today I popped into my local GW to have a look at a copy in the flesh - except they haven't got one, and won't be getting one until release date on 1st October (and maybe not even then).

I then made the mistake of trying to talk to the GW Red Shirt who didn't know what Man O'War was let alone how the game mechanics in Dreadfleet compared (or even worked) or even the size of the models ("there's a picture on the website of a ship next to a figure"). After clearly failing on every level of competence he then asked if I wanted to reserve a copy of the game (quite...).

So I'm left pondering, £70 is a lot of money but the box does look chock full of useful stuff and whilst the miniatures appear to be very large compared to Man O'War models this might not be a crucial issue as it is fantasy and the largest 10cm ship is supposed to have a cathedral on the back so it is BIG. I was 75% convinced when I noticed Wayland were flogging it for £63 but adding the £6 postage on takes it back up to practically RRP. I considered the option of combining an order with David Manley which would have saved just under a fiver each on the RRP, but Wayland are now restricting it to one per customer as GW will only let them have 12 so that is a dead end savings wise...

So it's back to pondering and back to the hoplites who are now dipped and looking good, the shields were dipped tonight and are drying. Unfortunately I have to go to Bolton for a couple of days so no more work until I get back but hopefully a fair sea and clear skies at the weekend might see them finished before the end of the month!

Anyhow as it is International Talk Like A Pirate Day* here is some Pirate Metal to set your cutlasses waving (ok the music is really crap on this one but you have got to check the stage costumes out, I couldn't stop laughing, the shark is brilliant!)

* it was Pretend To Be A Dinosaur Day on Saturday, missed a trick there for a good old dinosaur post... :-(

Alternate Realities

2011-09-17T16:44:00.001+01:00

Whilst the two Athenian phalanxes are proceeding slowly but surely (the insides of the shields are currently drying) I have been catching up on my reading pile, a paper mountain that rivals the lead and plastic mountains!

Recent titles include the first two Oathsworn books by Robert Low, The Whale Road and The Wolf Sea, the first of Jack Campbell's new Lost Fleet series, Dreadnaught, and I'm now immersed in the fourth of Alex Scarrow's young adult Time Rider series.

Alex Scarrow (brother of Simon) has wriiten four books in the series centred around a team of three young people rescued from the point of death by a mysterious stranger to work for a secret time agency (who they have no contact with), tasked with protecting the timeline from change and fixing time slips that occur.

For young adult books they are certainly well written and hugely enjoyable and the concepts Scarrow covers superb. The first in the series, Time Riders deals with changes that occur during WW2 but has two timeslips that will appeal to Weird War Two fans and post-apocalyptic zombie ones.

Book two, Day of the Predator, is a bit Jurassic Park but has enough going for it and develops well as it progresses.

The Doomsday Code, book three, concerns itself with the mysterious Voynich Manuscript and the dispute between Prince John and King Richard fresh back from the Crusades (and questions the historical picture of both).

The fourth one of the series, that I am currently reading, The Eternal War, is set during a timeslip that has resulted in an American Civil War that has lasted over one hundred years and is a wonderful C21st Steampunk world with giant zeppelins, land ironclads, eugenic creations etc. all great inspiration for VSF wargamers (some of the historical points of divergence are quite interesting as well).

Overall, despite being young adult books, if you are young at heart I think you'll enjoy these and they are great to share with any children in the family. All have tons of gaming ideas, especially for skirmish games, to boot.

The Coffee Table Rules Dilemma

2011-09-12T18:28:00.004+01:00

Colours 2011 was a bit of a wake up call for me, where the recent trend in wargames rules production of full colour hard back books was brought into stark relief with the contents of my wallet! Over the years we all have been very critical of Games Workshop's pricing policies* but now it seems the everyone and his dog has jumped on the bandwagon and new sets of wargames rules now routinely cost between £20 and £30, sometimes more when you start to factor in additional materials such as card decks, special dice etc, and that's before you get to the miniatures.

MERCS was the one that caused the sharp intake of breath at the weekend. A reasonable little game, nothing extraordinary but £30 for the full colour hardback rulebook, £6 per faction game deck and £7 per miniature, All in all over £100 for a five miniature a side skirmish game...

7TV caught my eye but £25 for a full colour hardback rulebook before miniatures and (given the nature of the game) dedicated scenery put me off. Yes, I know Crooked Dice give DWMG away free but did 7TV need to be a full colour hardback at £25 when it could have been a (WAB style) colour soft cover with colour insert for £10 to £12?

Then there is SAGA which sounds just perfect for what I want to do Dark Ages wise but again £25 full colour rulebook and then £12 per set of special dice (because who wants to put stickers on D6's?). Ok I already have some Vikings, Saxons and a pile of Normans in the lead mountain but I'm looking at almost £50 for the rules and dice for two factions and I'll be frank unless there is a good offer on somewhere (come on North Star) I'll probably hold off for a bit...

In "ye olden days" I bought rules sets like they were going out of fashion, often to raid for ideas. I don't know how many sets I bought of A5 one colour card cover sets from Tabletop Games but whilst many didn't get played they contained ideas that could be used in home made sets or added to others (Pony Wars was a favourite, the Indian activation system worked well for Orcs in games of WHFB second edition...). But the low cost rules producer is now appears to be a thing of the past which to my mind is a shame as we lose sight of the fact that the product isn't the physical paper but the ideas inside...

The question is the what is the need for the superlative production values, are we all now being seduced by the "ooh shiny" syndrome? Taking MERCS for example, the product description on the website tells you (very) little about the rules but regarding the production values (and I quote): "Spot UV varnishing on a hard gloss lamination cover, 176 four color pages on 157 gsm matte art paper, Case bound, Smyth sewn, Over 100 artist illustrations and 221 full color photos!" Hold on are we losing perspective here? Ok, we don't necessarily want to return to the days of badly typed, photocopied old school rules of the 1980's but "157 gsm matte art paper" and "Spot UV varnishing" (whatever that is)?

The other question is padding. Take Bull Run To Gettysburg, the rules are only 38 pages of the 160 full colour pages and some of those 38 pages are 3/4 illustration and this is not unusual (if the game of MERCS we played was representative I'd guess you could get those rules on two sides - ok, there are probably 'advanced' rules, but the core system is nearly a bag of a fag packet job).

Yes you can argue that in the grand scheme of things £25 is not too much compared to going for a Chinese takeaway or the cinema and certainly the enjoyment of you play a number of games is more lasting, but I'm leaning towards the view that I'd happily buy three or four nicely produced sets at £10 to £15 that I may or may not play very often than gamble on one at £30 that costs that much more just because it looks pretty. And really if you want something to leave on the coffee table in the living room to impress visitors surely you'd pick some pretentious volume on modern art than a book about toy soldiers? :-)

* GW are taking the coffee table production to beyond the extreme, the current WHFB hardback is so thick and heavy it is to my mind unusable. I don't know if Saul has opened his copy unlike the well thumbed A5 paperback rulebook that came in the starter set...

Colours 2011 (or The Case Of The Mysteriously Closed Wallet)

2011-09-10T23:32:00.002+01:00

Saul and I went to Colours at Newbury today, normally a show which has an adverse impact on my finances but strangely not so today. I've been looking forward to going for a while now but didn't have much of a spending plan other than possibly getting some ACW artillery for the forthcoming ACW project. I had spent some time perusing the Perry Miniatures website and left quite enthused to buy some 12-pounders, maybe some dismounted cavalry and horse holders and even the outside chance of a wheeled ambulance. In the end I didn't buy any of this largely due to the fact that Dave Thomas only had one artillery pack in the ACW racks which had gaping holes in so I didn't see much point buying a small part of what I wanted...

The only (yes only) purchase was a copy of Grindhouse Games Incursion from West Wind which was on sale for £15 from its normal £35. I had considered buying it for Saul last Christmas and as it's his birthday next week and he likes WWW2 I splashed the cash on this. There were a couple of things that caught my eye including some resin nice craters with sandbags from one company that would have been good for 40k but didn't look like they would quite allow a heavy weapons base to be placed inside but overall there was nothing that screamed "ooh shiny" at me and two things I would have bought, Gripping Beasts' new Saga rules and the new Clash of Empires supplement, were not available yet (both due to be released in the next week apparently, did no one check the show diary and miss the big show?).

However as I wasn't spending money I did have more time to look at the games and even play a couple. First off Saul and I tried out MERCS, a SF skirmish game West Wind are importing. It was quite fun using character cards to not only show stats and rules but also as the measure for figure movement. Fun though it was the £30 price tag for an, admittedly nice, rule book was too rich for my taste (especially as you still needed to but the card decks at £6 a faction and miniatures at £7 each (I thought they were £7 for three which I thought was a bit steep and only realised this was the price per individual miniature (gulp!) when I checked the website when I got home.

We also managed to play Tusk in 28mm put on by Lincombe Barn which was so popular with the punters we didn't get on the table until quite late in the afternoon. We both had a lot of fun playing Tusk, it is a while since I played it, and Saul's surviving bowman with a haul of two mammoths and two babies saw him crowned king (I'd got off to a great two mammoth start but a saber-tooth and ferocious baby mammoth wiped out my small hunting party!).

There were a number of other good games, Hammerin' Iron was very popular and we didn't get a chance to play and I was personally impressed with the War and Conquest Peloponnesian War game for obvious reasons. The big VBCW battle caught my eye and intrigued Saul as he is studying the inter-war period in GCSE History and there was a big Isandlwana display that looked good but really if you ae going to make a huge mountain, paint that many toy soldiers and lug it all to a show why don't you play with it?

As usual I've run all the photos I took today through iMovie and added some prog to it...

Bull Run To... Marathon

2011-09-09T20:49:00.002+01:00

Having sent most of the week in Northern Ireland working in the fair, but rather wet, city of Derry I haven't managed any progress on the painting front but returned to find a nice pile of post including the new Foundry ACW Rules and the Ancient Warfare 2011 Special.

As previously mentioned I got a really good deal on Bull Run To Gettysburg and having given them a quick read they seem to be the sort of game I was looking for to make use of the pile of Perry plastics I bought in a fit of "ohh shiny" when the first plastics were released a few years back. At the time I planned to use the Lardies ACW rules but couldn't get my head round them. BRTG is much more old school, handfuls of D6 and what looks like an enjoyable game in a couple of hours. I suppose ACW perfectionists won't like them but they'll do me and now I have an incentive to paint the pile of plastics so look forward to an ACW month coming soon...

The production qualities are really top notch and much better than my only other experience of Foundry production values, Medieval Warfare. The rules only comprise 40 pages of the 160 page book and most pages have lovely colour pictures of beautifully painted Foundry ACW miniatures, the rest being a mix of painting guides, army lists, scenery construction, potted history, copiable flags etc.

Overall if the ACW is your pet period you'll probably not like this and I'm sure ACW buffs will be able to pick historical holes in the rules. However if you of an old school mind, like the idea of buying a few boxes of plastics and having some fun brigade level blue v the gray games then I think you'll like this.

My other reading material that the nice postman delivered was the Ancient Warfare 2011 special on the Battle of Marathon. Having flirted with the Society of Ancients for one year I have found Ancient Warfare magazine a much more enjoyable and unpretentious window into the period.

The annual specials are always well done and this one is no exception covering the build up to the battle, the historical records and the battle itself in a detailed, but easily readable series of articles (with I suspect enough footnotes and references to keep the more dedicated happy).

Whilst I really have no interest in raising a Persian army after I finish (hah!) the Athenians and Spartans largely due to the amount of miniatures I'd have to paint, it's still been interesting reading...

Our War: Ten Years In Afghanistan

2011-09-02T20:20:00.000+01:00

A few months back I posted about a National Geographic documentary called Restrepo: Outpost Afghanistan about a US army unit's tour of duty in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, today I watched the first of a three part BBC series about British troops in Afghanistan entitled Our War.

Interestingly most of the footage is filmed by the actual troops on the ground and this episode, entitled Ambushed, was largely filmed by Sergeant Simon Planter, Platoon Sergeant of the 3rd Platoon 1st Royal Anglians.

For the most part it centres on their deployment at Now Zad in the north of Hemand province and focuses on their first offensive mission against the Taliban which unfortunately results in the death of 19-year-old Private Chris Gray, the 53rd British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

The BBC often gets criticised these days (sometimes by myself) but this 70 minute documentary is exceptionally well done and a moving tribute to Chris Gray. The programme intersperses interviews with his o/c, platoon colleagues and family with footage filmed by his platoon sergeant and intelligent use of maps and computer graphics.

My only criticism of the BBC is their failure to show it on BBC One at 9pm on a Saturday night as a fitting tribute to the brave men and women serving their country in Afghanistan...

The series is being released on DVD later in the year but I have found it posted on You Tube here, along with the next two episodes in the series, for anyone who missed it on TV.

Bargains From Bull Run To, Er... Botswana!

2011-09-01T20:41:00.002+01:00

I've had a quite productive day today on the old Greek Hoplite front working on two of the three Athenian phalanxes for the Peloponnesian War project but as they are still works in progress on I thought I'd tip you the wink on some bargains at Amazon that might float your boat...

First off is the new Armies of the Nineteenth Century, Central Africa by Chris Peers. £30 from Foundry you can pick it up for £17.67 plus £2.80 postage from Amazon if you get a move on...

Also from Foundry is their new set of American Civil War rules, Bull Run To Gettysburg, £25 at Foundry, just £13.12 plus £2.80 postage from Amazon. I availed myself of a set as I still have a large pile of Perry plastics waiting for some blue and grey paint one day and a set of rules...

And the sage wisdom and savings from Bleaseworld does not end there, no, here is one that gets you things for free!

Those of you that shop in Sainsbury's probably have a Nectar card but even if (like me) you don't shop their regularly* go register at Nectar for one (and if you have a card register it online). Why? Well as you will see from the website hundreds of online shops give you Nectar points including (wait for it!) Amazon AND eBay! Yes, all those second hand wargames goodies you buy on eBay and hide from SWMBO could be earning points that you can convert into vouchers to buy useful things like beer (or chocolates or wine if you have a SWMBO). Not doing it is like throwing free money away...

Yes it's a slow process but it all adds up over the year and it just requires you to log on via the Nectar site which becomes second nature very quickly (and I can tell you SWMBO Blease is very happy with the way her Nectar points have gone up this year!)

* I don't but can recommend the odd treat for yourself in the form of their Big Bacon Breakfast Butty once in a while if you have been good (and yes buying the butty qualifies you for even more points!)

Dwarf Rocketeers

2011-08-30T10:08:00.001+01:00

A bit of a change of pace but still sticking with an air theme(!) I painted up these two Dwarf Rockeeter conversions I made for Saul's WHFB Dwarf army yesterday. They have been sat undercoated on the workbench for almost a year now, but looking for something to polish off whilst still "in the zone" painting wise I decided their time had come.

In my formative years of fantasy gaming I was an Orc gamer but have over the last few years grown to appreciate the 'stunties'. That said, and whilst Saul's army is a WHFB one, I don't like the road GW have taken with their Dwarves, preferring a more Nordic/Tolkien feel. I especially don't hold with Dwarves, the archtypical conservative race, being so technologically innovative and one of my pet 'hates' is the Dwarf gyrocopter which not only is un-Dwarflike to my mind, but a crap model.

Consequently Saul's Dwarf army doesn't have any air assets, even though a gyrocopter is a useful asset for an army which is not exactly the most mobile. However a couple of years back I spotted some Dwarf Rocketeer conversions on the Bugman's Brewery forum and knew that not only were they pretty cool looking but would make a good proxy for the hated gyrocopter.

Unfortunately the current plastic Dwarf release, good though it is, is not suitable for converting into rocketeers, however it is relatively easy to get hold of the previous plastic set on eBay and even models already stuck together can be chopped and changed. The pièce de résistance is the simple use of the dragon's head standard as a rocket pack and as a nod to the Rocketeer film I used the winged helms for both dwarves (the idea being they change direction by moving their heads). I also added a stick of dynamite from the Miners box set to drop on the enemy!

Overall, whilst a tad comic, I am really please with how these have turned out and may do three or four more to form a small unit of Rocketeers for unofficial games at home. When acting as a proxy for the Gyrocopter (for games down the local GW) the idea is to place both models into a 40mm square sabot base which I hope to knock up when making some new movement trays for other miniatures.

1a Squadriglia Caproni Ca. 3

2011-08-29T11:54:00.001+01:00

I've been looking forward to cracking on with the Der Kampffliger Caproni ever since it arrived as it is a fantastic model and the light weight resin makes it perfect for wargaming. Although it started operational use in 1915 the Ca. 3 model was utilised throughout the war so I was able to pick a 1918 machine with a late war disruptive camouflage rather than just paint a clear doped linen plane.

The model doesn't come with a crew so I added a front gunner and two pilots from Reviresco. I wasn't going to add the precariously placed rear gunner cage (right above the rear pusher engine!) but had a eureka moment and scratch built one by using a Reviresco pilot's legs, the top half of a gunner and some odd bits of wire and am pleased with how it turned out (the model was 95% painted before I decided to add him!).

The plane (pictured below) is that of Capitano Guido Tarmelli and belonged to 1a Squadriglia based at San Pelgaio in 1918. It should have some more detail such as the motto Audaces fortuna iuvat on the nose but my hands and eyes aren't that good anymore!

To give you an idea of size of the model, here it is with one of the 91a Squadriglia's SPAD's (it is worth noting the resin Caproni is a lighter model than the metal SPAD which is a godsend for a model this size).

Overall I am really pleased with the Caproni and although I only intended this to be a one off I may get a couple more for some Italian front bombing scenarios...

91a Squadriglia SPAD VII's

2011-08-28T11:19:00.001+01:00

A bit of concerted effort yesterday saw me polish off the two Italian SPAD VII's from Skytrex yesterday. I had intended to paint them up as French machines but reading The White War I felt that the Italians deserving of recognition (and my Nieuport 28's will definitely be French - with one flown by an American!). Both machines are from the 91a Squadriglia, the two tone colour scheme being down to the difference between the canvas clear doped linen look (GW Bleached Bone) and the painted metal cowling (GW Iyanden Darksun). The contrast may be a bit too much but I like it. Decals are from the ever reliable Dom's Decals.

The plane with the crescent moon painted on the fuselage is that of Tenente Giorgio Pessi who had six victories.

The SPAD with the skull painted over the fuselage roundel is that of Capitano Fulco Ruffo di Calabria who netted an impressive twenty victories during the war.

Onto the Caproni next, though British reinforcements in the form of two Der Kampflieger Airco DH5's and two Sopwith Pups have now turned up... :-)

1ère Escadrille de Chasse Sopwith Camel

2011-08-27T16:28:00.001+01:00

This Skytrex Camel has been sat folornly on the workbench for a few months now, the pan having been to paint it up as a Polish plane for the Russo-Polish War however having acquired some Belgian roundels that came with a 1/144th Hurricane I came across a reasonably colourful scheme for a Belgian Camel at WWI Aviation.com. The illustration doesn't state which squadron the Camel is in but as I beleive the Belgians only had one squadron operating Camels in 1917 I'm assuming it is the 1ère Escadrille de Chasse.

Whilst it looks a bit rougher in the photos than it is as the pictures are about twice the size of the actual mode and I am quite pleased with the finished model. I'm actually on a little bit of a roll plane painting wise and should have the Italian SPAD's finished later today...

Busy Achieving Nothing...

2011-08-22T13:58:00.001+01:00

Chatting with Dave Manley the other day we both concluded we were full of good intentions hobby wise but in danger of achieving nothing, just aimlessly going round in circles! Since I painted the Liberator I've gone completely off focus. I had hoped to get to the VSF get together at Rochford Hall but real world circumstances dictated against it, however on the plus side I have started painting my Shapeways' Caproni and a couple of Skytrex SPAD's for the 91a Squadriglia.

Coincidentally I am also reading Mark Thompson's The White War, a history of the Italian Front in the Great War. I must confess that it is hard going, not because of Thompson's style, but the sheer level of suffering the Italian army suffered largely due to the incompetence and lack of consideration by Cardonna commanding them. Whilst the Western Front is horrific almost beyond comprehension, the Italian Front is unbelievably worse. Combine the horror of the Somme with attacking up 40 degree terrain and a commander who believes that suffering more casualties is good for the army (and re-introduces decimation as a means of maintaining control) and you get some idea of the cruelty suffered by the Italian soldier. That the collapse at Caporetto didn't happen two years earlier is testament to the courage exhibited by the troops in the most cruel and horrific of circumstances. Not light reading but highly recommended.

Sticking with the Great War, my desire to get on with some gaming using the Warhammer Historical rules was further reinforced with this excellent French Army project on an Australian wargames forum. Again it made me feel ashamed at my figure output of late!

Then of course today something else comes along in the form of a ridiculously huge box from Shapeways containing another Liberator and two Pursuit ships. Taking a quick coffee break from the day job I decided to see how easy it was to convert the printed resin... Really easy is the answer, so I now have three new classes of vessel that I hope to get painted this week - after the WWI planes!!!

Agincourt And Crecy

2011-08-14T12:09:00.001+01:00

I was chatting to a friend about my summer holiday and he said, when talking about Agincourt (or Azincourt as the French and Bernard Cornwell spell it), something along the lines of "I don't suppose the French make much of a fuss about that". Actually this could not be further from the truth and in fact the French could probably teach us a thing or two about promoting our battlefield history.

We visited both the sites of Agincourt and Crecy on our holiday. There is not a great deal at Crecy, but to my mind it is the minimum standard we should be trying for here in Britain.

Along with quite a prominent sign, there is a small car park and wooden tower which you can climb to look over the battlefield which has a painted board inside matching the view but showing the distribution of the English and French forces and a dual language board with the background and outcome of the battle on. We probably only spent ten to fifteen minutes there but it was good to see history being remembered, even in this small way.

Contrary to Anglophile expectations the French do make a big fuss about Agincourt (even if only to get a few Euro off English tourists!). There is a really good visitors centre/museum in the lovely village of Azincourt which is highly recommended and clearly a lot of thought went into (I really liked the bow shaped display stands).

They also provide you with a map of the battlefield to either walk or drive around (given the weather we drove). There is a well tended memorial with dual language description and a useful stone table showing the distribution of the forces on the day of the battle. Also around the battlefield are lifesize painted wooden cut outs of archers and knights which add a certain je ne sais quoi but are quite effective.

Unfortunately we missed the annual re-enactment event by a week but apparently 2015 is the year to visit as the re-enactors plan some impressive events including an arrow storm volley and having 300 knights walking into a rain of English arrows. Not one to miss I think.

Bush Warfare: Free eBook

2011-08-11T11:30:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd share some news from the ColonialWars Yahoo Group that the Canadian Department of Defence has republished Bush Warfare written in 1907 by General Sir William Heneker as a free ebook which you can download their website.

Heneker served in West Africa at the end of the nineteenth century and having skimmed through the book this morning it looks like it could be a very useful resource for anyone interested in colonial warfare...

(Blake's 7) Deep Space Vehicle 2 (The Liberator)

2011-08-10T12:06:00.002+01:00

I managed to grab a little bit of free time to finish off the next vessel in my Blake's 7 mini-project, the iconic Liberator (or System Deep Space Vehicle 2 if we want to give it its correct designation). Another 3D printed model from Admiral Duck Sauce at Shapeways I'm really pleased with the end result (even trying to paint some of the alien markings on the ship).

A number of gamers seem to be having problems with the material the models are printed in, stating that it absorbs paint like a sponge. However, I've not experienced this having given the models a good undercoat with GW Skull White spray (and I do this on all planes and spaceships so I'm not doing anything different).

I only mention this in case you are put off by some of the bad feedback which would be a shame as there are some really very interesting models at Shapeways including some fantastic spaceships with designs that could not be cast in one piece using normally production methods and would be too fragile/heavy as multi-part kits.

Other projects are currently stalled but I did buy some much needed paint yesterday for my Athenians so there might be some Ancient Greeks soon (the article in the current WI on Sven Forkbeard's army is making me feel very ashamed at my pathetic figure output over the last few months).

The Tuskegee Airmen

2011-08-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

As part of the day job involves equalities issues I always find it of interest to read about the sacrifices of minorities in World Wars One and Two. Many, such as the Annamite Tirailleurs at Verdun, are not well known, while others such as the 332nd Fighter Group, the Tuskegee Airmen, are better known (at least to those that study history).

Whatever, it is interesting to see Lucasfilm will be releasing a film about the 332nd next year entitled Red Tails which looks pretty good and hopefully will encourage more study of the sacrifices of all those, regardless or colour or creed, who fought against Nazism.

(Blake's 7) System Chase Craft

2011-08-02T15:33:00.001+01:00

Rather than start with the iconic Liberator I painted up the two System Chase Craft I purchased from Admiral Duck Sauce at Shapeways (sold as Alien Pursuit Ship 48mm). Being ships from the same alien race as the Liberator, the Chase Craft design share a similar look although they only have the central hull and a red propulsion globe rather than the Liberator's green. The models are not 100% accurate (as the screengrab from the second series episode Redemption below shows) but they are nicely done and paint up well enough.

I am tempted to get a couple more to convert and maybe one of the larger 95mm models to use as a larger class vessel.

Onto the Liberator next...

Touring The Somme

2011-07-31T12:28:00.003+01:00

Whilst on our hols in Northern France, Saul and I decided to undertake a Somme battlefield tour using the abridged Holt guide in WHSmith's Battlefields of Northern France magazine that I bought last year.

We started at the town of Albert with its famous Bailique and visited the Somme Trench Museum located in the underground tunnels built in the 1930's to protect civilians from bombardment in any future war. This is an amazing museum and chock full of items recovered from the battlefield, all very evocative.

The tour itself started with a trip to the Lochnagar Crater with a stop en route at the Bapaume Post Cemetery. The crater is absolutely jaw dropping, 300 foot wide and 90 foot deep and almost incomprehensible looking at it now. The site also gives you a good view across No Mans Land from what were the German frontlines to where the British attacks started (one thing we did notice on our tour was that whilst this was by no means a war of movement, the distances covered by the troops on foot were a lot more than we previously imagined).

We then drove on towards Longueval stopping at the Flat Iron Cemetery by Mametz Wood and the Caterpillar Valley Cemetery with the New Zealand Memorial. Just outside Longueval is the new Bristol's Own Cross Memorial for the troops of the 12th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment and after passing through the village the new erected Footballer's Battalions Memorial which its wonderful quote by Millwall player Jack Borthwick's quote that "this is worse than a whole season of cup ties".

Just outside Longueval is the Delville Wood Memorial and South African museum which was really interesting including exhibits not only on WWI but WWII, Korea and even the South African Border War and the guerilla war fought by the ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe against the Apartheid Government.

We then did a slightly circulatory route to Thiepval as the maps we were using were rubbish(!) but we stopped en route at the Australian Windmill Memorial and Tank Corps Memorial. The Thiepval Memorial and visitor centre is very moving, the memorial listing the names of over 73,000 British and Commonwealth troops who fell on the Somme and have no known grave.

I had intended to end the tour there but decided to have a look at the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel and we were both really glad we did as it was the highlight of the day. We'd already visited Vimy Ridge which has parts of the battlefield preserved but Beaumont-Hamel is an amazing site with the only remaining trenches from the Somme, covering a wide area and giving you an incredible perspective on the distances etc the troops had to cover between trench lines. It is a truly poignant place and the fact that the 1st Newfoundlanders suffered so badly as they had to launch their attack from further back than planned as the new Wellington trench (subsequently used successfully by the 51st Highlanders) had not been completed fully brought home as you walk across No Mans Land toward the German trenches.

Overall it was a really fascinating day and one we will not forget. If you ever get the chance to visit Northern France, a day driving around the battlefield is a highly recommended. I have posted some more photos on my Facebook page here.

The Blake's 7 Mini Project...

2011-07-31T00:38:00.000+01:00

Readers of a certain age and nationality will recall with much fondness the wonderful British SF series Blake's 7 which ran for four seasons from 1978. It may have suffered from a low budget but I always admired the fantastic work undertaken by Mat Irvine creating many of the amazing model spaceships used throughout the series (often from the most unexpected household junk).

Anyhow, you may have seen the wonderful Shapeways models on SteelonSandBlog and as previously commented I knew I would not be able to resist getting some as a mini-project. They arrived whilst I was on holiday and I've only managed to get around to having a proper look at them today, suffice to say I'm a happy bunny!!

I managed to grab a few minutes today to undercoat them and plan over the next month to paint them all up and post them on the blog in between some more WWI planes and the Greeks I made on holiday. In the meantime here is the Blake's 7 theme for you all to enjoy, possibly the best TV SF theme ever?

Back In Blighty!

2011-07-25T21:42:00.002+01:00

Got home late this afternoon from a week in France and a weekend at the High Voltage festival and am bloody knackered - I think I need a holiday! :-)

We visited a number of interesting historical sites including Agincourt, Crecy and Vimy Ridge, as well as doing an all day tour of the Somme with Saul - I'll upload some of the more interesting photos in due course.

I did manage to make up some of my Immortal Miniatures Greeks but this took me longer than anticipated so I have only stuck together three Athenian phalanxes and haven't started on the Spartans yet, hopefully I'll get on with these after this week's working away though this will mean ignoring the box from Shapeways that arrived whilst I was away...

Hats Off To Mantic...

2011-07-14T11:23:00.001+01:00

You may recall I picked up Mantic's Dwarf King's Hold: Undead Rising at Salute which is a cracking little game and well worth picking up. Anyway, the second Dwarf King's Hold game is being released soon in the form of Dwarf King's Hold: Green Menace which whilst stand alone featuring Orcs and Elves can be combined with the original game.

As part of the promotion Mantic have released a bundle of the two games with an exclusive scenario and limited edition Dwarf Driller. All well and good for new customers but somewhat annoying for those like me who already bought Undead Rising...

However, in response to customer feedback over this (including myself on their Facebook page) Mantic have now put up the option of a Green Menace pre-order including the additional bits from the bundle. This has to be ordered before Green Menace is released, but hats off to Mantic to responding so promptly and favourably and making sure existing customers didn't miss out.

I'm really looking forward to Green Menace and I will say if you haven't got the original game, the Dwarf King's Hold bundle with both games and added extras is well worth getting, it is a wonderfully simple but challenging game and a great one to play with either fellow grognards or the kids...

The Redneck War

2011-07-13T14:59:00.003+01:00

The internet is truly a wonderful thing, from researching how the unions in Wisconsin are organising themselves against the local governor for work I ended up finding out the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War, which ended with the employment of Federal troops and the aerial bombing of its own citizens by the Washington government less than 100 years ago in 1921.

The Redneck War, or West Virginia Mine War, and the Battle of Blair Mountain makes for fascinating reading and given the popularity of 1920's pulp wargaming could make for some really interesting skirmish games.

The battle is not widely know outside West Virginia and it is a shame to note that given the continual pressures on the heritage of battlefields across Europe and America, that the local mining companies wish to employ mountaintop removal techniques to reach the coal underneath, destroying this unique heritage site.

Morituri Te Salutant!

2011-07-12T19:01:00.001+01:00

Warhammer Historical appear to be on something of a roll this year after the single release of WAB2 in 2009, they've not only knocked out Kampfgruppe Normandy this year but now followed it up with Waterloo and Gladiator.

The latter has piqued my interest given my fascination with the genre, especially as it appears to not only deal with one-on-one combat (which usually becomes a dice rolling contest) but more expansive multiple-figure battles, introduces elephants, as well as naval gladitorial games (which might convert to Viking naval battles), with chariot racing thrown in to boot.

The sample spreads (see below) look really nice and it appears that the acclaimed LOTR combat system is being used (which is great if it is). I am going to resist the urge to buy this now, despite it being a good price at £20 as I've enough on the go at present and am just going to add it to my Amazon wish list!! :-)

It's All Greek To Me...

2011-07-11T12:09:00.001+01:00

With a long overdue summer break to foreign shores coming up I have decided to take a leaf out of the Jim's Wargames Workbench book and take some toy soldiers with me to prepare for painting, so I'll be soon taking a break from supergluing my fingers together (Neiuport 27? What a stupid design!) and getting high gluing my boxes of Immortal plastic Greeks together (note to self, open window!)

As Saul will be studying Sparta as well as the Lysistrata when he goes back to school in September it seemed a good idea to advance the Peloponnesian War project a bit. We'll probably be using Clash of Empires and army lists for both Sparta and Greek Hoplite army lists are available on their website. That said I have cheated and to start with I've noted down the contents of the 1st Corps Clash of Empires army deals to use as a starting template (this may be lazy but I can't be bothered with points balance armies and I find working out armies from lists extremely boring, you can blame WHFB for that...).

Obviously I'll need to buy some metal figures as well, but it should give me something productive to do in the evenings other than drink the local vin du plonk.

End Of The News Of The World

2011-07-10T10:57:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how the News of the World phone hacking scandal is being reported worldwide but as a result of the furore today marks the end of the 168 year old Sunday newspaper as News International have decided to cease its publication. The paper is not one bought in the Blease household but it does seem a shame that such an institution is binned in such a manner.

Anyhow, the main reason for bringing it to your attention is that in the last issue they have run a nice feature on HMS Liverpool, on which my son-in-law is serving, which is currently in action off the coast of Libya which might be of interest to some of you.

Dr. Zac Diagnoses My Condition...

2011-07-05T15:10:00.001+01:00

At last my condition has a name - Gamer Distraction Syndrome! In his blog today, Zac Belado has diagnosed what thousands of wargamers suffer from and has given it a name. It's not just the impulse purchasing and continuous stream of starting new projects that is our problem, many of us cannot stay on track with an existing project.

I've tried to address this by having project months (and how I envy Tas whose month has gone on for four months and shows no abating!), but even this falls foul to Gamer Distraction Syndrome. For example, yesterday I said it was back to the aeroplanes right? So why did I then start sticking together the Mantic dwarves from Dwarf Kings Hold?!!! Whatever, at least I now know I have a condition, what it is called, that I am not alone and that the only cure is self-control!!!

To this end I have cleared the dwarves, 20mm moderns and other unfinished detrius from my working area and have started gluing a couple of SPAD S.VII's together though I do keep humming this Peter Gabriel song... Help!! :-)

10 Squadron 'Black Flight' Sopwith Triplanes

2011-07-04T09:26:00.002+01:00

Back to the aeroplanes this month as I need to finish off the last few so we can get the 2nd edition of AirWar: 1918 out. With this in mind I finished off the two 1/144th Der Kampfflieger Sopwith Triplanes I bought from Shapeways.

I had read a number of negative comments on the Wings of War forum about the models, more specifically the material they are made out of (described by Shapeways as White Strong and Flexible) but as you can see here it paints up nicely enough and the end result is more than acceptable.

I painted the models up as two of the famous 'Black Flight' of 10 Squadron RNAS (namely the planes flown by Raymond Collishaw and Gerald Nash). Whereas the the RFC painted their planes PC10, the Naval Air Service painted their's PC12 which apparently had a more brown hue. There is a LOT of debate about exactly how red/brown/green this colour was but in the end I went with Tamiya XF-68 Nato Brown. The roundels are from (the ever reliable) Dom's Decals, whilst the lettering (which was a real bitch, these are the second C and third N) from Fox Transfers. There should also be letters on the fuselage but I didn't trust myself to paint it neatly enough at the size required.

Focus now needs to be on the French and Germans (with an odd Italian)...

History Through The Ages

2011-07-03T10:19:00.068+01:00

Yesterday the extended family congregated at the History Through The Ages event organised by The Sealed Knot and Battle of Cheriton Project. Whilst I have never felt the urge to dress up in period costume myself and hit someone over the head with a replica weapon, I must confess I do enjoy a good re-enactment, especially English Civil War ones that have a fair number of re-enactors.

The main event was a re-enactment of the Battle of Cheriton, which was nicely done with one a couple of regiments of foot a side, a few cannon and three cavalry (even these three demonstrate how intimidating cavalry are when they gallop past you despite the protection of two safety ropes!)

It was also nice to be able to wander around the EWC camp after the battle and the re-enactors there acting in period were very interesting, the kids being fascinated by the foot powered lathe and solar watch, and the women with 'Napier's Bones' (ok, I was quite fascinated with this too).

Aside from the Sealed Knot, there were a number of other small re-enactment groups including a small household contingent from the Wars of the Roses, who again had an interesting encampment and undertook a brief skirmish between themselves which demonstrated how simply a bill could trap an opponent's weapon, allowing you to swiftly stick your dagger in his throat!

There was a also a WW2 British paras re-enactment group (who kindly let the kids hold and examine their weapons) and a small Napoleonic group with British and French.

There were a number of trade tents including one selling Warlord Games ECW figures (the heat must have got to SWMBO as she was encouraging me to buy some at one stage!). I did resist but took the opportunity to join the Battlefields Trust which I had been meaning to do for ages and as well as getting a year's membership they gave me a pile of back issues of their Battlefield magazine (which is really interesting) and a signed copy of Julian Humphrys' Enemies At The Gate.

All in all a good day, there are some more photos of the re-enactors on my Facebook page amongst pictures of the kids and Barney the dog eating an ice cream if you are interested!

And Here Is One She Made Earlier...

2011-06-27T18:35:00.001+01:00

Like many of the female of the species SWMBO likes crafting. However, of late she has forgone the delights of card making, encaustic art (painting with an iron!) and parchment craft for the joys of jewellery making and as you can see from this nice little Blue Chalcedony bracelet she's pretty good at it (so much I think this could be a good sideline for Wessex Games - think of them as weregild to take home to the wargames widow after a show!).

Unlike most hobbyists she is very good in that her entire hobby is kept neatly stored away in a 16" x 12" box when she isn't making bracelets, earrings and necklaces. Pointing this out to me, I responded I keep all my hobby material in a single box - the house! :-)

Normal service is resumed tomorrow...

Der Kampfflieger 3D Printed Austin Osprey

2011-06-26T19:27:00.001+01:00

When I ordered the Der Kampfflieger Sopwith Triplanes via Shapeways I also picked up the Austin Osprey they produce. Only one prototype was produced in 1918 as a replacement for the Sopwith Camel, but the Osprey was beaten by the Sopwith Snipe so never went in to production, however, I thought it would be nice to have one for use in 'what if?' dogflights as it is a nice looking plane.

As previously stated the model is 'printed' in a plastic resin (described by Shapeways as 'white, strong & flexible'). It has a slight rough finish and is apparently porous and will absorb paint like a sponge, however a good undercoating (I used the trusty old GW Skull White aerosol) and I didn't have any problem painting the PC10 Catchan Green fuselage etc. The model doesn't come with a pilot so I used a Reviresco one but he seems a bit 'big-headed'. Decals are, as usual, from Dom's Decals.

Overall I am very pleased with my first paint job of a 3D printed model. The detail is good, it is very light and the end result more than acceptable. Hopefully Der Kampfflieger will produce some more 3D prints of less common WWI planes in the future...

W E John's Airco DH4

2011-06-26T19:10:00.001+01:00

Having decided to repaint the Wings of War Airco DH4 because I didn't like the PC12 chocolate brown finish I had to decide on what paint scheme to use. By and large British bombers of the late war period are extremely boring and although the history of 55 Squadron, Independent Force is interesting, their overall PC10 planes aren't.

Aside from my interest in the Independent Air Force formed in June 1918, like most air wargamers I love Captain W. E. John's Biggles books and as John's served in 55 Squadron being shot down after six weeks of active service in September 1918. At this time 55 Squadron's planes only sported national markings and an individual plane identifying letter. Unfortunately whilst we know John's plane was serial no. F5172 we don't know what letter it sported so as some squadrons used the officer's initial I have gone with J.

Painting The Black Flight

2011-06-26T00:19:00.002+01:00

Having undercoated and painted the undersides of my Sopwith Triplanes I've had to decide on a paint scheme for them. Despite there not being a lot of choice with British planes they can sure give you a headache! :-)

The RNAS were the primary users of the Sopwith Triplane and the most famous users the legendary Black Flight of No. 10 Naval Squadron. As you can see from the picture below quite a simple but neat scheme with distinctive black cowlings and wheels...

But as ever ascertaining the fuselage colour is a problem. RFC planes are generally painted PC10 which can be reasonably portrayed with either GW Catachan Green or Tamiya NATO Green (the shade does vary due to the mix, field service conditions and weathering).

RNAS planes are normally painted PC12 and this is a contentious subject of much debate. Is it a chocolate brown, a red brown, a more earthy brown? Who knows, the situation is further confused with new late war colours used in the tropics being mistakenly identified as PC12 on fabric samples.

"Popular opinion" suggests that Tamiya's Flat Earth or Flat Brown are the best colours for PC12 but one post I read about the IWM RNAS Camel is that the colour can vary from green to brown depending on the angle viewed at! Also, the picture above looks like Catachan Green to me! :-)

Armed Forces Day 2011

2011-06-25T20:43:00.000+01:00

Today is Armed Forces Day in the UK, a chance for us to honour our armed forces past and present. There are a number of events across the country and I noticed a Challenger II was parked on College Green in Bristol (well, I assume it was there for Armed Forces Day and not in preparation for the Teacher's strike demo on Thursday!).

This is the first Armed Forces Day my son-in-law has actually been on active service in a war zone, being somewhere off Libya in HMS Liverpool, though this is probably less hazardous than last year when he met the PM on HMS Ark Royal who promised to revisit the carrier for the 25th anniversary (strange he didn't keep that promise).

3D Printed Sopwith Triplane

2011-06-21T13:02:00.000+01:00

You may have seen on Steel on Sand's blog about the 'not' Blake's 7 ships purchased from Shapeways and co-incidentally my first order from Shapeways arrived today courtesy of UPS. Tempted as I am by the Blake's 7 ships (and I will not be able to resist, the Liberator is such an iconic image of my childhood), my first purchase was a couple of 1/144th Sopwith Triplanes and an Austin Osprey designed by Kampfflieger (more noted for their wonderful paper kits).

I was expecting to receive a pack of several pieces and was surprised that the models are one piece castings and nicely detailed enough that they will fit in with my metal and plastic WWI collection. I must confess to still not being able to quite get my head around the process, but then I don't really understand how the TV works, so will just accept that it does. The models are in a plastic which I am not sure how it will react to paints, glue, cutting etc, but I'm not anticipating any problem even though I picked the cheapest material (you can upgrade) but whilst slightly rough I think they will look fine after undercoating and painting (the pictures here are blown up about 3x actual size so the effect looks exaggerated).

I must say I'm really taken with this whole idea and want to find out more about 3D printing as it seems a great way of getting obscure planes into production with less cost than traditional methods (and yes, I was thinking about aeronef, ships, experimental tanks etc, etc!)

Blitzkrieg!

2011-06-20T20:43:00.001+01:00

You may remember I said I wasn't starting any new projects but I confess I have weakened (a bit...) For some time I've been pondering on converting Panzerfäuste/ColdWar: 1983 into a straight historical WW2 set. I have used Panzerfäuste for the Russian Front before but appreciate WW2 gamers don't feel easy about having their Germans firing Dwarf smgs and there are some parts of ColdWar I'd like to pull over as well. So in between things I've been planning out WorldWar: 1940... Not sure when it will be ready, I could do a quick job cut and paste but I really want to spend some time on the various armies and cover a lot of the smaller ones (the great thing about section/platoon level games is that one-sided wars become distinctly less one-sided).

Rather than just cover the usual suspects in the rulebook, or concentrate on NW Europe 1944, I've decided to put the primary focus for the rulebook on the period September 1939 to May 1940 with future supplements covering the Eastern Front and Balkans, the Western Desert, South-east Asia and the Pacific, NW Europe and Italy and the end of the war. So having drafted out what I want in the first book I've been looking into 28mm miniatures as I like the idea of raising a section plus some support weapons for a number of the countries over the course of the project (especially some of the unusual ones), with maybe the odd AFV here and there.

For the Blitzkrieg period BEF produce early war British, Germans and Belgians and Warlord Poles and French (boxes of which I have ordered from Wayland). Other smaller nations are a problem, Norwegians used to be available from Valkyrie Miniatures but the best bet now seems to be useBrigade Games Austro-Hungarians and a bit of Green Stuff, not sure about the Dutch and Danes...

Father's Day To The Rescue...

2011-06-19T13:16:00.001+01:00

With a heavy work schedule and a loss of painting mojo I've come to a grinding halt on anything to do with wargaming hence the complete absence of posts. However Father's Day has seen a nice little present from Saul which is getting the fingers twitching again in the form of two packs from Design 28 Miniatures wonderful Steam and Steel range which I will be adding to my simmering Victorian Gothic project.

First off is V6 Jack The Ripper set, which contains four nicely sculpted figures including a police constable, newspaper seller and Jack himself (I can see SWMBO influenced this present given her fascination with Victorian detectives and crime).

The second set is very steampunk in the form of V8 Lord Fecitt and Hunting Party with a hunter on steam powered penny farthing and robot dog! Very Pax Britannica!

There are some wonderful miniatures in this range and I can see myself becoming a loyal and frequent customer of Design 28 Miniatures...

Tanks For The Pressies...

2011-06-05T11:09:00.000+01:00

Another year older last week and SWMBO* bought me some really nice wargaming pressies in the form of a box of the new 20mm Plastic Soldier Company PzIV and a box of the T34. Both sets contain three models and allow for a number of variants. The T34 has separate turrets to allow you to make T34/76 or T34/85 (indeed change them from game to game as required), the PzIV contains various bits to allow you to make either Ausf F1, F2, G or H variants (as you can see from the sprue layout below).

I haven't had a chance to make up the models yet but the sprues are crisply moulded and details well defined, I am especially impressed with the PzIV Ausf H with its skirt and turret armour. I must say I am really enthused by these kits and am looking forward to making them up, they offer good value, the two piece track assembly is really clever and the ability to make up a number of variants from one box very welcome. I can see myself buying many more PSR AFV kits...

* SWMBO would like it commented that PSR customer service was top notch and they were very helpful...

I Am Spartacus!

2011-06-01T22:22:00.000+01:00

The 'Real World' put painting on hold so the remaining squads for the Russian and American platoons are sat in a state of semi-completion. Hopefully I'll get a good couple of hours tomorrow or Friday to get them to dipping stage. The BTR's arrived today so once the figures are finished we're good to go (ok, I want to dirty up the Bradleys and add some S&S stowage but that doesn't stop them getting some gaming action assuming I can find the time).

My mind has been flitting with ideas for Basic Impetus and having become addicted (against my better judgement) to Spartacus: Blood and Sand I remembered I had a box of Orion 20mm plastic gladiators which I initially bought to use for a gladiator game before buying em-4's Ludus Gladiatorius. I've got the WAB supplement somewhere but I have also picked up Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel Spartacus which is apparently a great read. I'm not sure how many figures I'll need for a Basic Impetus army and as I don't have any 20mm Republican Romans I'll need to get some for an OpFor but given the way that Impetus bases are mini-dioramas as much as unit bases, the appeal of something a little different is very appealing and the Spartacus slave rebellion ideally suited for such a mini-project...

(Moderns Month) Modern Warfare 3

2011-05-28T22:31:00.001+01:00

My enjoyment of this evening's Champion's League Final was disturbed at half-time with the "world premiere" of an advert for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 which Saul insisted we watch (though I banned rewinding it in Sky+ as the second half was about to start). Whilst I am no great fan of computer games it did pique my "modern wargamer" interest so if you haven't seen it...

Some interesting background ideas and although I haven't managed to get as much painted this month as I'd hoped the "moderns bug" has bitten and I can see myself ordering piles of S&S Models resin and Elheim figures...

Back to MW3 I also came across this wonderful video that did make me laugh - and post on Saul's FB page! :-)

Dark Eldar Test Pieces

2011-05-24T12:59:00.000+01:00

I took an early lunch break to finish off these Dark Eldar test pieces that I found sat in the same drawer as the Dick Garrison miniatures. I have a pile of Dark Eldar sat around from when the particular 40K edition came out with them in it and I haven't done anything much with them despite quite liking the plastics (not so much the old metals).

I decided to see if I could come up with a quick to paint drybrush over black undercoat scheme to go with the Eldar and Space Marines already painted. After some thought I decided to paint the bodies Dark Angel Green and the helmets and shoulder pad things Liche Purple. Weapons are a blue-black, progressively lightened on the spikey blades. Quick and quite effective they make a nice contrast to the black and white Eldar, not sure when I'll get time to do some more for a while...

League of Nations Space Navy Troopers

2011-05-24T09:37:00.000+01:00

With the imminent publication of Dick Garrison Rapid Launch!! I needed to get some of the "good guys" painted as well as the hero himself. Having painted the Khang Troopers red, the Silvenians green and the Ingians blue I decided to go for a more conservative dark grey and white scheme. I have added splashes of colour with gold/copper badges, blue 'power cells' on the weapons etc, so they don't appear too monochrome and am pleased with the overall effect.

The Bob Olley sculpted figures are from Wargames Supply Dump but I'm not sure of their availability as the WSD website has disappeared (I'll drop Roger an email and let you know). Hopefully this is just a temporary glitch as I'd forgotten what fun these figures were to paint and have Khang the Compassionless and some hawkmen undercoated on the workbench to work on alongside some more moderns...

(Moderns Month) US Mechanized Infantry

2011-05-23T14:56:00.003+01:00

I finished the first squad of US Mechanized Infantry during my lunch break today, I must say I'm really pleased with the end result. As with the Soviets I have published a stage by stage guide on the Whirarwistan blog.

The squad is a mix of Esci and Revell plastics. I like both but if revisiting the project I would probably go with the Revell miniatures which have a slightly more realistic baggy look, that said the Esci models are finely sculpted and paint up nicely. The colours are slightly exaggerated from what they should be, but I think this is necessary to ensure they look correct on the tabletop and maintain the distinctive look of the US desert choc-chip camo.

I need to crack on with the remaining two squads for the Soviets and Americans this week but have slightly side-tracked myself by a commitment to get Dick Garrison Rapid Launch out in May, then realising I hadn't painted up any League of Nations Space Navy troops for the PDF cover. I have been working on a section in rotation with the US infantry (and the Orcs) and they shouldn't take long too finish or stop me getting back on track with the moderns.

Unfortunately I have shelved plans to paint up some 28mm England Prevails 2ECW figures this month. Looking at what I have I want to do some conversions to fit them in the background (I've got to have one trade union militiaman in a donkey jacket!) so they've been put back in the draw fttb...

Orcs v Tactical Nuclear Penguins

2011-05-22T15:23:00.001+01:00

'Moderns Month' is slowly progressing and I've almost finished a US Mechanized Infantry Squad which you can see here, hopefully finished tomorrow...

As the dip was drying I decided to stick together a couple of the sprues of Mantic Orcs we picked up at Salute - and I decided to slap a bit of paint on them.

These are by far the best models Mantic have released and a good mix of possibilities tempered with not too many pieces to stick together. I am so impressed with them I've ordered a box of thirty from Wayland Games which at £22.49 means they're only 75p each. What I really like is that they'll fit in with my old Citadel Orcs and don't look too comic. Ok, I'd prefer they were armed with scimitars and I'm not 100% taken with the shields but I do like them...

Painting was a doddle, black undercoat, drybrushed with Tin Bitz then Boltgun Metal. Repaint the non-metal areas black, then Dark Flesh, then Bestial Brown or Terracotta over that. For Orc flesh I mix yellow with black which makes a swarthy green, eyes are dotted Blood Red and teeth painted in with Bleached Bone.

I also finished off these two 'Tactical Nuclear Penguins' from the Critter Commandoes packs I painted Saul for Christmas, which had been 95% finished since January...

(Moderns Month) Soviet Naval Infantry

2011-05-13T20:10:00.002+01:00

It may have appeared that it was all quiet on the moderns front but I have been working on my first section of Esci 20mm Soviet Naval Infantry. They haven't take too long in between real world commitments and I used the Army Painter dip over a camo pattern which was something of an experiment but has come up really nice. I have published a full step by step guide on my Whirarwistan blog here.

My Bradley IFV's have turned up along with a bargain buy M1A1HA Abrams tank so I need to get on with weathering them and painting up the US infantry to go with them. My Soviet APC's are still in transit from Hong Kong! :-)

On the scenery front I dug out some of the old Ian Weekly models I commissioned many moons ago which will be great for both this project plus my 20mm C19th North-West Frontier when I get around to that. Here's one with the Naval Infantry section on it...

There's A Game In That...

2011-05-09T18:19:00.002+01:00

Some of you may have seen Tas' post on The Man Cave about Cyborg Seals and Zombie Penguins and The Lad's idea that it would make a cool wargame. Clearly if you add Commando Polar Bears to the mix he might be on to something...

(painting by Tyler Edlin)

This would be sooo freaking cool at Salute 2012... ;-)

By Crom!

2011-05-06T13:00:00.001+01:00

Feeling more hopeful after seeing the trailer (apart from the obvious 3D gimmicks ):

Adding Impetus?

2011-05-06T11:55:00.000+01:00

Not managed to get a great deal done as I've been away and am waiting for my AFV's and Revell US Moderns to arrive but I have decided to paint the Russkis as Naval Infantry and have based up a nine man section only to find I don't have any white undercoat to hand so I plan to pop into town before I pick Saul up from school this afternoon.

One thing that did come to my attention in my rummage in the attic was the number of weird and wonderful boxes of plastics I have in the attic for a wide variety of periods including a diverse selection of 20mm ancients and medievals (Egyptians, Seas Peoples, Macedonians, Romans, Barbarians etc). I have been giving some thought as to if there is anything I can do with them. The first thought was DBA but I don't like HOTT too much so that kind of knocked that on the head so I'm considering Impetus, or more specifically Basic Impetus as it's small (see photo from Bill's blog), free and the website has a host of army lists for the game online as well.

Whilst I'm still planning on using Clash of Empires for "normal" wargames with my 28mm Romans and Celts and the Peloponnesian Wars project (and am so pleased with my read through of the rules that I am considering using them for fantasy!), Basic Impetus may well be a practical solution to use the boxes of 20mm plastics I have...

May Is... Moderns Month

2011-05-01T11:22:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately April was pretty pathetic on the wargames front, the games room is still lost under piles of this and that and I didn't manage to paint very much either. I did ponder extending rescuing the games room month into May as it is a pretty important project but decided it will just have to be BAU as I focus painting efforts on something else.

With the Force on Force bug having bitten I've decided to have a 'Moderns Month' concentrating on two projects, my Cold War in a hot country Whirarwistan and the somewhat stalled England Prevails modern English Civil War. Be a change to paint some camo...

On the subject of moderns Shaun at S&S Models sent me a copy of their up to date lists which is a treasure trove for moderns gamers. There are a lot of very tempting models and figures in both the WW2 and moderns ranges and I am am trying to find reasons NOT to buy the 20mm Stryker MGS...
:-)

War in Whirarwistan

2011-04-30T17:04:00.000+01:00

Whilst having the enjoyment of constructing the mother of all pergolas my mind has been musing over the subject of my mini-Force on Force late '80's US/Soviet clash in some dusty Third World country (the fictional Whirarwistan found somewhere around the border of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).

Having sat with my Ecsi US Infantry and spent some time researching various Infantry Platoon TO&E's I've decided to go with a Mechanized Infantry Platoon which needs less infantry but did require the purchasing of some M2 Bradley IFV's. Not fancying making up kits for the four IFV's needed I did some browsing on pre-paints/diecasts in the end settling for the Altaya/Amercom/Deagostini M2 (Saudi Arabia 1991) in a nice desert yellow over green camo. With a little work they look like they can come up nicely as can be seen on this Polish blog.

I also decided to pick up a box of Revell Modern US infantry as the Esci box doesn't contain any M249 SAW gunners and it will add a bit of pose variety (and also should give me enough figures to expand the Mechanized Infantry Platoon into a regular one. A good half RRP deal on eBay covered this.

For the Soviets I have decided on a Motorised Infantry Platoon, it might not be 100% accurate using the Esci Russian Paras but we'll see how they look and what options I can find for Soviet troops sporting berets. APC wise I decided I wanted a BTR rather than BMP look and settled on the Easy Model BTR80 "Imperial Guard Troops" version. Again, a similar sand/green look to the Americans but one I like.

I've yet to decided on whether to get any tanks at this stage but various M1's and T72's are widely available so this isn't a major concern. I just need to find some 1p's to base the infantry on now! :-)

Cold War Hot!

2011-04-27T21:30:00.008+01:00

Before tea I had a quick rummage in the attic to check out what boxes of 20mm modern plastics I had sitting around to use with Force on Force and came downstairs with a nice pile. Whilst I couldn't find the old Esci Vietnam boxes I know I have, I was surprised to find two boxes of Esci's Modern US Soldiers, two boxes of their Modern Russian Paratroopers Spetsnaz, a box of NATO troops and a box of Warsaw Pact Troops all of which I must have picked up in the Eighties.

The US Soldiers are of that era and I think they are beautifully sculpted and detailed, the only criticism I could level at them is that they are a tad static. That said they'll be perfect for Force on Force and with a good mix of M16's, M60's and M47 Dragon launchers. A number of the troops have their sleeves rolled up and whilst they could be used for temperate theatres (spring/summer) the lack of a temperate OPFOR dictates they will be painted up in the wonderful US desert chocolate chip camo.

The reason for that is the Russian Paras (the obvious hypothetical OPFOR) who are clearly kitted out for service in Afghanistan or similar climes, a number sporting tropical hats, most berets. Again beautifully sculpted, the poses are a bit static but nothing too serious to worry about. Looking at the sprues it may be that the Russians are short in the LMG department, but there is a rather generic looking figure in the Warsaw Pact set who may well be of use, although he is wearing a helmet.

The NATO and Warsaw Pact Troops boxes are really oddities with three or four poses form particular armies and not a lot of use unless they can be combined with something else. The Warsaw Pact box does contain a Czech tank crewman who is generic enough to be a Russian and some of the others amongst the East German, Czech, Poles and Hungarians may work with head swaps. The NATO box is less useful with a mix of British, German, French and Italian but who knows.

I also discovered a box of Matchbox's NATO Paratroops which are nice figures with a good mix of weapons. Largely SLR armed the major negative compared to the Esci US Infantry and Russian Paras is that they are in cold weather kit more suitable for the Falklands that somewhere ending in 'Stan. Again, save them for another day.

Overall a good rummage and I have more than enough troops to raise a couple of platoons of US and Soviets to paint up for some hypothetical '80's clash somewhere between North Africa and Pakistan...

Force On Force

2011-04-26T21:39:00.001+01:00

Cunning plan to take three days holiday from work to link the two "four day weekends" and rescue the game room failed at the first hurdle - SWMBO... She pointed at the huge pile of wood in the back garden and ordered me to build her pergola! Prayers to the rain gods went unanswered and to be fair it has been sat awaiting construction since delivery last summer (and it is so big it does look like I could use it for having some BIG wargames outside complete with BBQ!). Five days of DIY (three blisters and many cuts, bruises and aches) later it is still not quite finished (though all 400 screws have now been screwed into the deck and the posts are all upright) so it looks like I'll have to miss the royal wedding (damn) to finish it off! :-)

In between times I haven't managed to paint a thing but after resisting the five pound off offer at Salute I fell victim to Amazon's over ten pounds off offer and ordered the new edition of Force on Force. Whilst I'd heard lots of positive comment about them I hadn't really intended to buy them given the rrp and just how good could they really be? Well, I haven't had a chance to play them and am only part way through reading them but I like what I am reading a whole lot.

Games are fought in a small area (if you use 15 or 20mm, a two foot square table is recommended), opposing dice rolls of varying types are used (a chance to dig out those old D8's and D12's!), the emphasis is on small unit tactics not an individual's abilities and I really like the way the game treats regular v irregular (asymmetric warfare) as distinctly different from regular v regular which is perfect for what I want to do, not only with the small (rather random) collection of modern figures I have, but also my (sadly dormant this year) modern English Civil War project.

Production is top notch (as you'd expect from Osprey), the hardback being slightly wider than an Osprey MAA but all in all a nice size. My only bugbear is whilst there are lots of varied artwork of modern troops, the photos are almost exclusively of US troops which is disappointing.

Overall I have to confess I probably wouldn't have taken the plunge at £25 for the game, there are too many "Beano annual" sets hitting the market at £25 plus these days to keep doing that, but at £14.68 (the price of a Chinese takeaway at Blease Towers) I took a punt and was glad I did. Really looking forward to giving this one a spin...

The Dungeons Are Calling

2011-04-22T10:13:00.002+01:00

One of my purchases at Salute was a copy of Mantic's Dwarf King's Hold: Dead Rising as a game we could take on holiday etc, or just break out for a quick battle. Official RRP is £34.99 but we picked it up for £30 from Wayland Games on the day.

We did play a quick game on the Mantic stand using the 3 up model game that they were running and I was impressed by the way the chit-based movement allowed the game to ebb and flow with advantage appearing and disappearing quickly. Having now had a chance to read the rules I am even more impressed this is a really very clever little game with a number of subtleties belied by its very simple game mechanics.

I was also very impressed with the quality of the components. You get 22 skeletons, 7 dwarves (groan) plus loads of odds and sods on the sprues, some beautiful card floor tiles, counters and several dice. If you didn't need to stick the miniatures together you'd be ready to go.

I must confess that I didn't like either the look of either the skeletons or dwarves when released but able to physically hold and study the sprues I have revised my opinion. The skeletons are excellent and I can't recall seeing a sprue so crammed full of spare bits. The dwarves still don't quite do it for me, but they are better than the photos on the internet.

Overall I must say this is an excellent game, lots of potential for expansion and a great one to play with either the kids or regular gaming buddies with a couple of beers on hand.

1st Cavalry Army Air Wing R.E.8

2011-04-19T13:32:00.001+01:00

Back to the Eastern Front and I finished off this Skytrex RE8 in Soviet markings this morning. This particular plane was captured off the Poles in 1920 before being given fresh markings and re-entering service with the 1st Cavalry Army's Air Wing.

This is a lovely little model and I'll probably buy a couple more as I'd like at least two in RAF markings and now fancy doing one in Polish. Despite the basic PC10 (Tamiya NATO Green) scheme the light grey nose and red tailfin do make it stand out nicely on the tabletop.

The 'Harry Tate' is probably the last of my planes for the Workers and Peasant's Red Air Fleet (well possibly another Snipe as I'd like to do "Nelly") as I need to paint up a couple of Poles and some White Russian opposition soon.

Next is my repaint of the Wings of War RNAS DH 4. I must confess whilst being VERY tempted with the experimental scheme pictured above but am leaning towards a more traditional PC10 look as I have been reading about 55 Squadron's railway station and sidings raids in Keith Rennles' Independent Force which would make for a cracking AirWar: 1918 game.

Hitler Wants To Play Warhammer 40K

2011-04-18T08:57:00.000+01:00

David Stuckey brought this wonderful You Tube video to my attention. Don't watch if easily offended, there are some very colourful sub-titles! :-)

Salute 2011

2011-04-17T18:02:00.003+01:00

The omens were not good for Salute 2011... I left the camera charging at home, forgot to charge the Blackberry on the trip up the M4, someone decided to dig up the North Circular again and arriving at the ExCel at 9.25am, the pre-paid ticket queue was worse than Games Day (and I never thought to experience that again). However, the Warlords cleared the pre-paids swiftly and efficiently (GW take note) when the doors opened, the Blackberry held on to take 150 odd photos despite being on no bars in a red box for most of the day and both Saul and I had a great time.

The ExCel might just be an impersonal metal box but it does give you loads of space and once through the door it was remarkably spacious (given the massive queue outside) allowing easy access to most traders and games. Some people moan about the ticket price but the amount of inspiration I come away with from Salute makes it worth every penny.

The games were of a consistently high quality. In some respects it is unfair to select some over others but the ones that especially caught my eye were an amazing US v Japanese Aeronef game, the 6mm Towton, an Abyssinian 1936 game, a Monmouth Rebellion game and a great FIBUA Grozny battlescape.

Spending wise well... I can say that I did not break my vow to start a new period and only bought figures to help finish existing projects but am broke! I did falter badly with Skytrex when buying two Spads and two Albatrosses but ended up getting a Sopwith Triplane and Handley Page 0/400(!), but I did resist the lovely new Short bomber. Ancients wise I did pick up Clash of Empires from Gripping Beast which I have only given a cursory glance to but looks ok (I also bought a box of Saxons to keep the Vikings I bought last year company - actually for Saga, more of which anon) . I intended to buy one box of Immortal Spartans but took advantage of their offer on three hoplite boxes which should now give me all the main units I need for the (as yet unstarted) Peloponnesian War project. Perry Miniatures (showing off lots of new plastic 3 ups) were selling their boxes for £15 so I grabbed a box of Zoauves to go with my ACW plastic boxes (all I need now is a few pieces of artillery to finish this) and might have a few left over to French VSF. Renedra has some interesting accessories on show and I bought a set of their new plastic gravestones and a pontoon bridge,

I did check a variety of games out whilst Saul played a few games of Wings of War. I did beat him trying out Mantic's Dwarf King's Hold boxed game which was a lot of fun so we bought a copy. Similar to Space Hulk in concept, this Dwarves v Undead game has a very cute chit based system that keep you on your toes and requires you to think tactically. Our game swung one way, then the other and then back again and we're looking forward to playing this a lot (and taking it on holiday!). The Dark Age skirmish game Saga that Gripping Beast are publishing in the UK I only got a brief look at near the end of the day, but it looked useful with around 50 figures a side in units of around a dozen. I don't think any of the ancients set were selling themselves very well, Clash of Empires realising a small table with a couple of units would allow gamers to get a handle on the basic concepts (Mantic did this well with Kings of War). The other forthcoming game that caught my eye was Where The Poppies Grow, a brigade level WWI game demonstrated with lovely terrain and 20mm figures. Apparently available from July I was quite taken with the inclusion of air elements fighting above the land battle which added a splash of colour and worked visually very well...

A number of forthcoming releases caught my eye. The Perry plastic 3 up's were interesting, but I was more taken with the Warlord Zulu War figures, their WW2 US infantry and Macedonian pike. Mantic were giving away sprues of their forthcoming Orcs if you signed up to mailing lists or played a game so we now have a small unit(!). Seriously they are very good and whilst I didn't like the Dwarves or Skeletons that much (they aren't as good as GW), the Orcs are really top quality.

Finally, as is my wont these days I've uploaded the photos into iMovie with prog rock sound track and uploaded the end product on You Tube so you if you have ten minutes you can see some of the wonderful games and models at Salute yesterday...

Royal Engineer Steam Walker

2011-04-15T16:00:00.001+01:00

You may recall last year that I painted up a section of Royal Engineer Automatons from Ironclad Miniatures for an as yet undecided 28mm VSF project. I decided to give them some heavy support in the form of this Steam Walker.

The model is from the old Mage Knight line and I picked a number of this model up off eBay a while back (having been warned away from pillaging Saul's collection!), IIRC it is from the Atlantean Kingdom army but I may be wrong. I repositioned one leg to give the impression of it charging forward movement and repainted it in a similar weather-worn scheme to the automatons before adding some kapok for the smoke.

We're off to Salute in a couple of hours and I've been drawing up my list conscious of my pledge not to buy anything new unless needed to help finish a project. This is proving hard but I am hoping my will power will survive (I'm not going anywhere near the Empress Miniatures stand and those lovely 28mm Modern Brits for a start!). My list is fairly conservative and I hope to restrict my purchases to Gripping Beast, Immortal Miniatures and Skytrex. The main focus will be checking out new games such as Kings of War, Saga and War & Conquest.

Well that's the plan, but you know what they say about plans... :-)

The Successor War(game)s

2011-04-11T23:11:00.004+01:00

If you have even a passing interest in Ancients it can't have escaped you that the long awaited Warhammer Ancient Battles II was a bit of a flop and the long promised supplements still non-existent. I did consider buying it at Salute last year (I even walked over to Forgeworld with the money in my hand) but am glad I held off...

So with WAB effectively dead or dying three potential successors for the crown have appeared in the form of Hail Caesar, Clash of Empires and War & Conquest. The latter is not due until the summer so may have lost out to the first two which are both available at Salute (or is poised to sweep up if the first two do not get the love from the disillusioned WAB crowd).

Now whilst I have no issue playing "dead" wargames and will probably use WAB I for some games with Saul, I must confess my palms did itch when I saw Hail Caesar advertised.

However, after reading the battle report in WI282 and comparing it to the Greek v Persian one on the Clash of Empires site I've decided it's not for me and rashly pre-ordered CoE from Gripping Beast to collect on Saturday.

It doesn't look a great deal different to WAB and that's the kind of game I want to play. I love Warmaster and its derivatives but the size of game that Hail Casear (and Black Powder) are aimed at is beyond me (well at least in 28mm). I also like the fact that Great Escape Games have already uploaded a ton of army lists onto their website covering a number of the popular armies (something WAB failed to do).

Now all I'll have to do is paint some more figures (and rescue the games room!!).

67th South Mordor Foot

2011-04-10T11:13:00.002+01:00

Whilst SWMBO has had me on bathroom DIY duty this weekend I did mange to finish off a few more miniatures whilst the sealant remover was curing! These chaps are Light Company troops from the 67th South Mordor for Flintloque.

Originally they were slated for inclusion in the second edition boxed set of Flintloque I was working on before I quit freelancing for CCI in 1997 (which is when they last received any attention with a paint brush).

The Light Company section would also have included a "magickyman", an oddball character with some limited magical abilities.

Magic had largely been wiped from the background in the first edition but I was keen to see it come back in some unpredictable and dangerous way that could be just as hazardous to the user as their intended target. I never got around to writing up the rules for "magickymen" but they would have fumbled their spell on the roll of a natural double, similar to a musket misfire (just with direr consequences!).

As you can see from the miniature Mike Owen sculpted, they would have been interesting and unique characters, this one having elements of the Mad Hatter and a patchwork coat.

Finally I finished off the Sharke and Harpy miniatures sculpted for the 2nd edition. IMHO they were superior to those in the original box set and owed more to the background (Sharke being half-elven) than the original sculpts.

Finklestein Dwarf Jägers

2011-04-08T11:07:00.004+01:00

Trying to take Tas's advice of doing a little bit each day I managed to finish off these Finklestein Dwarf Jägers for Flintloque.

Bearing in mind they got to the 99% finished stage last century, it was nice to see them finished (and yes, they were painted in enamels!). They were one of the last sets Mike Owen sculpted and I'm not sure if they were every commercially released as I can't find them on the Alternative Armies website.

This officer of the Krautian Guard is, he was a test painting to see how he looked in a white tunic. By this stage of my involvement with Flintloque I was keen to re-emphasise the fantasy element as I could see no point just recreating the Napoleonic Wars where the only difference was the models "funny faces" (a view I still hold to and IMHO a weakness in the games development).

For a change I based the models on round bases. Previously I had based my Flintloque figures on square ones, but I prefer round for skirmish games and think the GW War of the Ring bases may be a useful option if I want to have regular formations with these figures at a later stage.

Darkie's Mob

2011-04-07T22:00:00.001+01:00

Titan seem to eventually getting their act together with their reissues of old Battle comic book stories and the postman delivered a hardback compendium of Darkie's Mob, a story set in Burma about British troops caught behind enemy lines during the Japanese invasion, rescued by the mysterious Captain Darkie who leads them on a series of missions against the Japanese.

Unlike many war comic stories of the mid-seventies, this is no Captain Hurricane style adventure swatting the Japs with an uprooted palm tree, it is violent to a near visceral level, grisly and unrelenting and at times racist (though as Garth Ennis states in his introduction, this was a total war where the both sides demonsied the enemy and in that context it would be inappropriate for the British troops to act as though it was a tea party). It is a powerful story with an interesting mystery at its centre and if this was 15 or 18 certificate film we'd all love it! :-)

I must confess I don't recall it being as violent when I read it as a wide-eyed eleven year old but I do recall fighting Darkie's Mob battles with Airfix Aussies and Japs in my bedroom. One thing that did attract me to the story in the first place was Mike Western's artwork and I do hope Titan reprint his work on The Sarge and HMS Nightshade as he is a most under appreciated artist and deserves recognition.

Overall I've not read much better in the way of fiction, or seen any films set in the Far East campaign that compare to this and recommend it with the provisio that if you are letting your eleven year old read it make sure you discuss the context of some of the language with them before they re-enact an ambush at school yelling "take that you slant-eyed son of Satan!"

April Is... Games Room Month!

2011-04-04T14:03:00.002+01:00

This is Buffy, our six year old house cat with a dicky ticker. Yesterday he went AWOL. Saul and I had got back from a gig around midnight and although we turned the house upside down we assumed he'd sneaked out the front door as we came in. Being a house cat and very timid we were extremely worried.

This morning little bugger turns up after spending 32 hours in the games room. I am extremely baffled as to where in the room he was. Ok, there is a lot of stuff piled on, under and around the table but I did move piles of it yesterday and even sent his brother Sandy in on a search and rescue mission. There are no floorboards, dry walls whatever, he just hid somewhere!

Unfinished: 15mm Napoleonic Italians

Anyway this has led me to conclude that the games room needs rescuing, tidying and some games playing in it, so that is this month's project (and after yesterday it is now such a big tip that I'm too embarrassed to photograph it!).

Unfinished: 20mm WWII Americans

However, this month will not solely comprise of tales of boxing up things and putting them neatly away, during the search I regained access to some filing cabinets chock full of miniatures and I had a bit of an epiphany in that I realised I don't need to buy any more wargames figures (well maybe not never, but certainly for a very long time). I have such a multitude of scales, periods and forces (mainly unpainted) that it is bloody ridiculous.

Unfinished: 28mm Darkest Africa

I also came across miniatures that are 75 to 90% finished (see various photos) and that have been in that state for years and that is stupid (some of these may get finished this month to keep my hand in).

Unfinished: 20mm Modern Russians

So my pledge is that I am not going to buy anything new on the miniatures front, unless it is absolutely necessary to complete an existing project (and that doesn't mean buying two full AWI armies to go with the two British AWI figures I found, but small units and odd models).

Unfinished: 28mm Finklestein Dwarves

Also I will go through the filing cabinets, boxes etc, etc, and if I don't want to paint and use it I will be selling it - no more hoarding!

Thank you Buffy!