Last few 15mm Cold War for now, plus a few ladies

I have nearly finished the last of my Cold War forces that I have here, the last few bits are painted up now and that's the lot...........until I get some more. 

Firstly we have a minor conversion to an Armies Army YPR-765 PRI. To give my small Dutch force a bit of long ranged anti-tank capability I decided to add some missile firepower.  A bit of research and I discovered the Dutch converted some YPRs with the TOW launcher turret from the US M901 ITV. At the time I looked nobody made this in 15mm(more on this later) so a bit of modelling was needed. Luckily Team Yankee do the ITV as a plastic add-on for their M113 kit and you can buy a sprue of bits individually. One quick order later and a sprue duly arrived. The modification is simplicity itself, just switch the IFV turret for the ITV turret and it's job done. 

Slap some paint on, add some netting and here it is, ready to support my Dutch troops against the Soviet horde.

As is typically the way with these things, just after I had stuck all the bits together and started slapping the paint on I received an email from TSS/QRF. Amongst their new releases was, you've guessed it, the YPR-765 PRAT! Typical. Ah well, I've made it now and I am happy with how it came out.

In addition the the YPR I used a spare M577 to make up an aid-station objective/jump off point marker. A few mixed figures from my Dutch, ANZAC and US spares and here it is. Its also my first attempt at the US MERDEC camoflage, hopefully it came out ok. 

Finally I ordered another Fv432 from Armies Army to carry my Milan teams around, as well as a few figures to make the teams up to 3 men each. Here they are in all their DPM glory, that's my BAOR force done, until I get some Scorpion/Scimitars for them anyway.

The last pictures are of a Dead Man's Hand gang of "Daughters of the West". These are for a nice chap in Germany for his wife to use against his gangs. Nice figures that made a change from all the Cold War stuff I have painted lately. If you read this Carsten, I hope your wife likes them and doesn't beat you too badly.

Anyway, that's it for now. I have nearly finished a few more things so there may be another update soonish.

Take care folks and I hope your dice are good to you.

Parcel Farce strikes again

I just love ordering things that turn out to be delivered not delivered by Parcel Farce.  I order things and hope that it's somebody else delivering, be it Yodel, DHL, MyherpesHermes.  Anybody else.  Anybody at all, even if its drunken old Fred who always smells like he's been drinking since 6am.  At least he always delivers on the delivery day, like he's bloody paid to!  Unlike Parcel Farce who don't bother.  Track your parcel online they say, so I did.  It was on the delivery vehicle at 03:46 this morning.  So I waited, and waited.  Then I waited some more because "We deliver until 5.30pm" it says.  Except they don't because they are lying bar-stewards.  At 5.14pm my parcel was returned to the depot!  No attempt at delivery, no call to say "Sorry", no return call after I ring the "Plymouth" number and get put through to someone in Wales who says she will message them and they will call you back!  No bloody contact at all in fact.  About as useful as a chocolate fireguard and as welcome as a turd in a jacuzzi!

So, anybody who sends me stuff, please use somebody else.  Please!

In other news, I done did some painting!  I finally finished the big Shadows of Brimstone monster and some Dead Man's Hand casualties and riderless horses, so here they are.  They have been posted off to Germany now.

Dead Man's Hand casualties and horses

Harbinger, a massive beastie!

So, there you go.  I am now painting some 28mm WW2 Russians, before going back to the 15mm Napoleonics.  Have fun and catch you later.

A monstrous change of direction

In a change from painting and/or basing Napoleonics, this week I have mostly been painting monsters!  These are from the new boardgame Shadows of Brimstone and are painted to hopefully look like the ones in the book.  The Survivor figure is to give a sense of size for these as they do go from small to dang big.  The rocks are bits of cork painted to match the rubble around the tentacles, just to try and bring them together.  I must also apologise for the lines on the models.  I tried filling them, but for some reason the plastic putty doesn't stick to the plastic and just comes off. 

First up are the smallest of them, 12 Void Spiders.The upside down one is to show the mouth and, more worryingly, the big teeth.



Then we move onto the tentacles.  Again there are 12 of these, which came out pretty well I think. 



Next up are the Stranglers.  Odd creatures, no eyes at all, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 tentacles and a big mouth in their chest. 

 The larger types include these 3 Night Terrors with their glowing orange eyes.  Vallejo Orange Fluo to the rescue here.





Finally we have the Goliath, with multiple eyes, an odd tentacle tongue and octopus arms this is a real monstrosity.  A pretty gruesome looking thing and it stands crouches a mighty 70mm tall. 

 The head-on view is just to show the multitude of eyes.  There are 11 in total.




Next up I am painting up some of the heroes for the game, unless I get sidetracked by medievals.  Or AWI.  Or WW2.  Or Zombies.  Or..... Well, you get the idea.


Anyway, not much else to report.  I played a game of Sons of Anarchy on Monday night.  It seems pretty good, although we did several things wrong.  I have also come down with a cold again, one of the joys of having the grandchildren over to stay last week.  Hohum and all that.

Secret Santa, Flockbox and yet more painting.

Hello again,  I'm back with another update of absolutely no importance.

In a moment of madness I signed up to Chris Stoesen's Secret Santa project.  So I have bought, painted and based my "secret" and it will be soon winging it's way to the far reaches of New Hampshire, USA.  I won't put up a picture until after Christmas as I want it to be a surprise for the unfortunate chap who got me as his Santa!

Talking of Santa, my lovely wife has bought me an early present so I am now the proud owner of a Flockbox.  I have had a play about with it and it really does make a difference.  The static grass stands up and looks like grass, as opposed to my usual mix of flock and flat grass.  I am impressed and I will almost certainly end up rebasing lots of my based figures as it looks so much better.  The first figures I have used it on are shown below, along with the last figures I based with my old system.

British Highlander extras

Painting has been somewhat slow, but fairly steady.  I managed to find, paint and base the remaining BEF 1940 Highlanders that I had left over. Another 12 Highlanders, supported by another Vickers MG with 3 crew.  I just need a 2pdr and some bren carriers to make the force fairly complete.

1940 German Platoon

I also managed to get a full platoon of 1940's German infantry painted up, these are from the Plastic Soldier Company box.  There are 59 figures, making 2 commanders and 4 squads with support in the shape of a 5cm mortar and an AT rifle.  There are also 4 spare LMGs and 4 extra riflemen.  These have been based with the flockbox, so upright grass is all over the place.  I just need to add an HMG, Pak gun and some form recce elements.  Then it's on to the French that I bought in January!

I am now cleaning up some more Cowboy figures for Germany again, Lawmen and Desperados this time.  There will be a slight delay on these though as I am off to London on Sunday to see the Tower of London poppies before they are taken away after the 11th of November.

Well that's it for now, I am off to do something less productive.  Keep rolling those dice folks.

Absent without leave.

I have been a bit remiss of late regarding posting on here, I can only apologise to anybody who actually reads it for that.  I have been pretty crock for the last couple of months and, to be honest, it's got me down and I have been struggling to get back to any form of normality.  Painting and gaming have both taken a big hit and I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything, so finishing anything has become a problem.  I am just waiting now on a referral to a London specialist to find out if he has any ideas for treatment of my stomach, as my local consultant has tried everything he can think off.  Ah well, I am still losing weight, so its not quite all bad.

Gaming has been very limited, just a couple of boardgames and a Napoleonic naval skirmish in the last few months.  I played Firefly the boardgame with Zob, Andy and a visiting Student Layabout Mat last week, which Mat won and I definitely lost.  Getting all your crew eaten by Reavers is not a good thing to do.  The week before that I played Axis and Allies: Battle of the Bulge a couple of times with Nathan, which I really enjoyed.  I enjoyed it so much I bought my own copy so I have it to hand.  Its simple and the combat system works very well.  We still have not managed an American win yet, but it's a lot harder for the German's now that we are doing the trucks properly.  If you can give it a go and see how you do, it doesn't take long to play and the rules are quick to pick up.

Last night I played a Napoleonic naval game using "Signal for Close Action" by Langton.  I had 2 French ships(a 1st rate and a 3rd rate) while Zob had 2 3rd rate British ships.  Despite my excellent rolls for crew quality and captains ability, I managed to completely screw things up in 2 turns.  First I rolled a double 1 and damaged my own 1st rate, then Zob rolled a well laid shot and took down 2 masts, then I rolled another double 1 and blew up my own gun deck, starting a major fire in the process.  Because of all this I had too roll several morale checks and, while I passed the first two, the final one was a test too far and my first rate ship struck its colours.  In all I rolled four double 1's last night, all on my own ships firing and all causing damage to my ships.  I don't know why I bother sometimes!

I have managed to get a bit of painting finished in the last few weeks, but they have all taken a lot longer than they should have.  Some more delightful 15mm Napoleonics have joined the finished pile, with another British Line unit being joined by some RHA gun crew.  I still need to paint their guns though.




Then there are the Foundry SWAT figures, eleven in total that I stripped and repainted as my old paint job looked quite crap compared to how I paint now.



I also got some Dead Man's Hand gangs painted for a nice chap in Germany.  7 Outlaws and 7 Pinkertons, which were actually quite nice to paint after the 15mm gun crews.

So that's it for now.  I am off to the dentist tomorrow, then to see a medical type on Thursday so it's all go here this week.  Keep smiling folks, it's not all that bad really.  This time last week I was preparing to have a camera shoved up my "Khyber Pass"!!!

Operation Market Larden II, a day of lardie games in Evesham.

The second Market Larden games day has now been and gone and much fun was had by all.  Thanks to the Wyvern Wargamers for hosting us all again and thanks to all those who put on games for us to play.  There were some lovely looking games on again this year, with a range of options to cater for almost every taste.  I have added a few pictures from each of the games, more of the Benouville game put on by Ade that I played against Geoff of the demon dice.

Rich points out the finer details of the table

 First up was 28mm Chain of Command "Le Port" put on by Too Fat Lardies Rich Clarke.  British Paras against Germans, it looked and sounded like fun.  The scenery was excellent, even if it is in the wrong scale.  ;-)  There were rumours of an overly aggressive play by the Paras, who charged down the table and pinned the Germans into a quarter in the morning session, but Nathan "Charge, charge and Charge again" Goodyear(aka Stumpy) said this was just rumour mongering from the Germans.

Paras charge into the dastardly huns!

A closer look at the church.

Lovely scenery, with its own pool complex

Next up was a beautiful game of Through the Mud and the Blood by Sidney Roundwood.  The scenery and figures were all eyecatching and I almost wished I had put down to play it just because it looked so pretty.  Pingu played Gaston, the 'ero of Paris.  They held the town but lost the wood apparently, but who cares when it looks so good?

The nasty Huns advance in numbers

French defenders ready themselves

A river, a village, what more is needed?

Third table was "Saving Mrs Ryan", a Sharp Practice game by S. Walker set in the Indian Mutiny.  Yet another lovely looking game with lots of colonial infantry figures facing lots of rebellious native types.  No idea if Mrs Ryan was saved, but I hope she was.

Gallant redcoats advance down the road.

Napoleonics in the Spanish countryside

There was another Sharp Practice game, Napoleonic Peninsular this time, by J Ibbotson.  Again it looked very good and was certainly vocal in its support.  

Marders advance

Now a foray into the more modern era with a game of I 'aint been Nuked Mum by Nick Overland.  Lots of lovely Cold War kit on the table and it seemed to go well.

The fleets advance to secure the islands

 Napoleonic naval also appeared, with Kiss Me Hardy run by Nick Skinner.  The ships were beautifully painted and rigged and the kalistra hexon islands looked good with their sandy shorelines.

The calm before the storm.

Loudest game of the day had to go to Omaha Beach I 'aint been Shot Mum by Mike Whittaker.  It seemed to be going well for the Allies as they broke through the wire, DD tank number 4 seemed to lead a charmed life as it shrugged of hits from all and sundry.

The defences are breached

Benouville in 15mm (The One True Scale)

Now we come to the games I played in personally.  In the morning session I was lucky enough to get the Benouville Chain of Command game put on by Ade Deacon.  I had the Germans of 21 Panzer Division, tasked with recapturing the buildings and driving the British Paras back.  My forces were reasonable, with a full platoon well supported by lightly armoured (wafer thin armour) halftracks.  My opponent was Geoff "Demon Dice" Bond, whose cheerful smile covered an unnatural ability to roll 9+ on 2d6 every time he fired a PIAT.

Geoff "Demon Dice" Bond and his patriotic shirt!

Germans advance on the left

The game went well initially, I pushed on with my plan to push up the left and outflank the British.  then a British section ran down the road on the right and, while it stood in the open, I just couldn't resist and attacked it with a 75mm pak halftrack and a full squad.  A couple of rounds firing saw the British wiped out, but at the cost of my junior leader.  Then the sneaky PIAT team used an ambush attack and damaged the halftrack too.  Meanwhile, as I pushed up the left flank with 2 squads and 2 halftracks, I came under sporadic but accurate sniper fire.  Bang, whizz, splat,  dead junior leader again.  It was looking good though, the British were down to 4 force morale and I was still on 6.

More appears on the left

So I advanced, and that bloody PIAT ambushed again and, despite being at extreme range and firing at an obscured target, the 2cm flak halftrack was taken out without firing a shot.  My force morale plummeted to 3 and things were looking bad.

Right flank target draws heavy fire

Then Geoff did it again, ambushing for a third time with his cursed PIAT and killing the previously damaged halftrack, taking my force morale down to 0 and winning the game for the British.  Every shot with the PIAT hit on a roll of 9 or more, every single shot.  Well played Geoff, well played.

The Germans push on through the orchards

The scenario was excellent, really difficult for both sides, but achievable.  Look for it in a future TFL special, I can recommend it, but only if the two players do not know what their opponent has in his force.

Thanks to Ade for all his work in setting the game up, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am now looking at getting the forces needed to put the game on myself.

Right flank adavnce

Another look at the table.

In the afternoon I played Tinstar, put on by Geoff.  His presence had totally knackered my dice rolling by now and I couldn't hit a barn door.  I fired 4 shots with a shotgun, which hits 5 out of 6 times.  I hit once.  Just once.  Nathan didn't do any better as he and Pingu traded misses with their rifles.  Unsurprisingly the evil sheriff managed to get his "witness" to the courthouse, but by then 5 out of 6 bandits were dead so it didn't really matter.  I enjoyed the game though and the changes to the system have improved it.  Keep up the good work Geoff.

And that's it.  After an early start, a drive up punctuated by 50mph average speed cameras and some good games with excellent company, we travelled home.  I have spent most of today recovering, but it was well worth it.  Put me down for next year Ade. 

Gunfight at Zobski's Saloon

Zobski's Saloon

 Last Monday night say us getting together for a first play of Tin Star.  Zob was away playing with real guns so the six of us remaining split into 2 gangs and had a fight over Zobski's Saloon.  Each of us had two gunfighters, one 4th rank and one 3rd rank.  One had a pistol while the other had a pistol and either a rifle or shotgun.  Starting off at opposites sides of the main street, we had at it and prepared to let fly.

The 3 Amigos

 The three desperadoes, or the rebels without a clue!  Colin, Nathan and Andy whose evil bunch of no-good sheep herders came into town to take on the law abiding, hard drinking cattlemen, led by Gus, Panjo and yours truly.

Gunfight at the KO Corral

The game uses a novel system, similar in some ways to Wings of War.  You get to select an appropriate number of actions depending on your rating, so a 3rd rank gets to pick 3 options while a 4th gets 4 options.  Each character then gets to take 3 of his selected actions, so higher rated characters don't get to do more, they just get to cover their bases better.

Injun Bob gets outflanked

 The combat system uses "special" dice, with the appropriate results for any weapon.  For example a shotgun only has a 1 in 6 chance of missing, but can only hit at short range, while a rifle misses 1 in 2 times but can hit out to long range.  Sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, trust me.  There are also dice for movement, cover and under fire.  Basically, if what is on the dice has happened, then the shot has missed.

Two face of with the sheep rustler

Bang and Curly Bob goes down

The fight quickly went wrong for the sheep rustlers, as both Andy and Colin lost a character, then Colin's last man tried to gunfight both of mine.  He managed to take out one of them, but the other cut him down and secured the flank.  Nathan and Andy did their best against Gus and Panjo, but numbers  told and eventually they had to concede the town and were last seen hightailing for the prairie.

Swift retribution comes though

All in all it was well received and a fun game was had.  I will be posting more about these rules as time passes, it may even prompt me to paint the OK Corral figures I got from Games Workshop Historical many moons ago. 

There will be another post later on, but that's it for now.  Keep rolling those dice.