New rules, changed plans and other random mutterings.

It seems to me that we are living in a golden age of wargaming, with rules and figures of quality all coming out with startling rapidity.  I have recently purchased 25mm Colonial British infantry, 25mm Dark Ages warriors, 15mm Cold War British and 25mm Crusader figures.  Not much has been painted, but it doesn't stop me buying them..........

Then the rules, Lion Rampant, Dragon Rampant, Kings of War, Men who would be Kings and Congo have all joined the collection recently.  Will I play them all?  Probably not as much as they deserve, but I still have them.  I really enjoy the Dragon/Lion Rampant rules, but they are not suitable for a large battle and some times it's fun to load the table with lead and have at it.  Hence Kings of War, which seems to be everything Warhammer could have been.  And now Congo has reared its head and has been the game of choice for the last 2 weeks.  I have not played it yet, but have run a couple of games for the Monday night lads, with the White Men winning one and the African tribes snatching victory in the other.  I keep getting drawn to North Star and Wargames Foundry to look at the bundles of figures they do but have managed to restrain myself......so far.

So, what do I plan to play next?  Dux Britanniarum is currently the plan as Nathan and I are running a game at Firestorm Games on Saturday 15th.  Also the painting list has been scrapped and replaced with suitable extras, such as carts and the like, for the game.  I have also been painting Romano-British figures for Andy and Nathan.  So far Andys 36 figures have been finshed and returned, while Nathans 19 are awaiting the imminent delivery of shields.  Then it's onto 70 odd other assorted Saxon and Briton figures for Nathans ever expanding warbands. 
 

Bad photo!

Here are Andys British, a mix of metal and plastic figures with LBMS shield decals to finish them off.  Sorry about the crap photo, it was a rush job as I was getting ready to go out.

So thats it for today.  It's just gone midnight and I have to be up early tomorrow for a pointless doctors appointment.  A GPs review of the tablets prescribed by the consultant, so they can't change them without his say so and he won't say so, but they have too see me to review the medication every 6 months.  So on that happy note, good night and I'll catch you all next time.

PS  By all I do mean the 2 people who look at this load of tripe every now and again. ;)

Normal service has not been resumed.....oh, and Secret Santa 2016!

But an update is probably past due.  Things are not moving on with the planned operation and I am now totally f****d off with hospitals, tablets and nasal gastric tubes.  It's my four and a half year anniversary tomorrow from when I first ended up in hospital.  I wonder if the op will happen before I die of old age?  I have had the tube fitted more times than anyone else in Torbay hospitals records.  In fact I am such an expert on the bloody things that I now do it myself at home. It saves going to the hospital every 2 weeks I suppose.

I am feeling so crap, both physically and mentally, that gaming and painting have taken a real dive.  Hardly anything has been played, although I did get taken out to Panjo's new house for a game of Black Plague last week.  Apart from that sod all in the way of wargaming and very little painting has happened.

Reaper Bones Ebonwrath Dragon

One of the few things that has been finished(finally) is a Reaper Bones dragon for future games of Dragon Rampant and Kings of War.  The Lurtz figure is just there to show its size.

I also did 6 Falschirmjager for Nathan, he does the basing himself  and they have been painted to match some he picked up on eBay.

28mm Falschirmjagers

Stadden 90mm Marines

Closeup of the drum

Finally there is a change from the normal service, with a trio of Stadden 90mm figures. They belong to a lovely lady that my wife knows who served as a WREN with the Royal Marines, married a Marine and both her sons became Marines.  One of them is currently a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London.  Anyway, her husband bought these figures many years ago and I was asked to repair and repaint them.  So, from left to right we have a 1980's Royal Marine in DPM, a RM Bandsman in dress uniform and an officer of the Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot from the 1660's.  It made a change to paint something that large and the figures themselves are beautiful.  The level of detail is amazing, even down to the coat of arms on the drum.  She loved them, so it was worth the week of stripping and cleaning them, followed by several weeks of painting.

However, I have not picked up a brush since finishing them, so when Chris Stoesen of Wargamer's Odds and Ends contacted me about this years Secret Santa, I jumped in with both feet in the hope that it will revitalise things and shake me out of the doldrums I seem to be stuck in.  I can thoroughly recommend this scheme, I have partaken for the last 2 years and it's been great.

So, that's it.  It's now 0130 and I suppose I should go to try and get some sleep.  Seeing as I average less than 3 hours per night there is no real rush though, so perhaps I'll wait a bit.  Catch you later

Too many new rules to keep up with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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